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FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

lpolovets
246 replies
1d18h

My understanding is this allergen over-labeling was inspired by the FDA in the first place. https://www.fastcompany.com/90830854/sesame-seed-allergen-fd...

From the linked article (from Jan 2023):

  But sesame does differ in one distinct way from eggs, peanuts, shellfish, milk, and soy: The seeds are teeny tiny and hard to keep track of. This means they’re prone to “cross-contamination,” in food-allergy terms. If you operate a bakery that makes sesame bagels, the odds are decent that rogue seeds will end up in your other products, too. Bad news for people with severe sesame allergies. But it’s also expensive and frustrating for food manufacturers to ensure the seeds are kept away from other foods, if they’re on the FDA’s major allergens list.
  
  Advocates have therefore been warning since December that the FASTER Act is poised to have a counter effect. Rather than minimize cross-contamination, as they argue the law requires, many big food brands have opted to add sesame to their bread products, then simply declare it as an ingredient. They are intentionally adding sesame flour to “avoid complying with the spirit and intent of the FASTER Act,” FARE tells Fast Company. That is cheaper than certifying that their facilities are 100% sesame-free.

kevinventullo
69 replies
1d17h

Doesn’t this open up the market for a newcomer to make verified sesame-free bread?

betaby
61 replies
1d17h

No. That market is too small to target. Overregulation is affecting consumer choices.

jjallen
54 replies
1d13h

It’s over regulation to everyone who doesn’t have sesame allergies.

It’s lifesaving to those that do.

Somehow bakeries in Switzerland are doing just fine with sesame being a declared allergen and keeping them separate but American ones just can’t be bothered to handle a life threatening ingredient thoroughly carefully.

kragen
16 replies
1d12h

well, until now, bimbo's breads were sesame-free, and now they'll presumably have sesame in them. so people in the usa with sesame allergies will have to cook their own bread at home now, unless they're lucky enough to have access to a small artisanal bakery

lukan
15 replies
1d10h

"will have to cook their own bread at home now"

Serious question as a non native english speaker, is this a correct way of saying it?

I think bread is usually baked in an oven ..

KineticLensman
10 replies
1d9h

Don’t know the actual stats but (UK here) lots of people who make bread at home use a dedicated bread machine

lukan
9 replies
1d8h

It is still an small oven, not a cooking pot ..

(some bread you can also make in a pan, but you cannot cook bread in my understanding)

CocaKoala
4 replies
1d1h

What's the difference between baking and cooking in your understanding? You can make bread in a rice cooker, which nobody has ever called a "rice baker".

edit: and a rice cooker is definitely not a small oven.

lukan
3 replies
1d

Cooking involves boiling. Liquids bubbling.

Baking is more of a evaporation.

And the german definition of cooking in the narrow sense is defined like this, but in a broader sense apparently usable for everything with preparing meals.

And I never used a rice cooker, so no idea how to classify that ..

CocaKoala
2 replies
22h57m

If cooking involves boiling, what are you doing when you put a steak in a hot cast-iron pan?

To the rice cooker point, I'd argue that an oven uses a heating element of some form (electric coils, gas flame, wood fire) to heat the air in a closed environment, and the air transfers heat into an item. In contrast, a rice cooker uses a heating element to directly heat a metal pot, and the metal pot transfers heat into an item. Usually that's going to be a combination of rice and water, but you can e.g. pour pancake batter into the pot and get a large souffle pancake, or put bread dough into the pot and get a loaf of bread. The trick is that the metal pot is much more efficient at transferring heat than the air is, so the rice cooker doesn't need to be at the same temperature as an oven to get the same amount of heat into whatever you're cooking.

lukan
1 replies
17h56m

Well, technically there is usually bubbling going on, when making a steak, but would you "cook a steak" in english?

In german you would not, one would roast it. (but we have 2 words, roasting "rösten" on the bbq and "braten" would be in a pan. But a "Braten" would be in an oven.)

Kind of not that consistent (like it usually is with natural language).

In general I think those terms were invented, before there were things as a rice cooker.

kragen
0 replies
5m

yes, in english, broiling, grilling, boiling, and baking are kinds of cooking. but 'bake bread' is such a common phrase that 'cook bread' sounds wrong

WrongAssumption
3 replies
1d5h

Cooking is just the application of heat. Baking is the application of dry heat. Baking is a subset of cooking.

lukan
2 replies
1d1h

In german, the literal translation of cooking is "kochen" and that involves boiling things.

detaro
1 replies
1d1h

Even if you assume literal translations capture 100% of the details, "kochen" has multiple meanings. One of them is "boiling", another is "cooking" in the general sense of "preparing meals".

lukan
0 replies
1d1h

Well Wikipedia says there is a narrow definition, that necessarily involves boiling of a liquid. This is the one I always used.

But in the broader sense, it seems to also mean the preparing of meals, but I never encountered it like this.

"Kochen (von lateinisch coquere, „kochen, sieden, reifen“ entlehnt) ist im engeren Sinne das Erhitzen einer Flüssigkeit bis zum und am Siedepunkt, im Weiteren das Garen oder Zubereiten von Lebensmitteln allgemein"

"es kocht" literally means, it is boiling.

smohare
0 replies
1d9h

Your intuition is right. One would say “will have to bake their own bread at home”.

kragen
0 replies
1d2h

as a native english speaker, i should have said 'bake their own bread'. it sounds wrong the way i wrote it

jjallen
0 replies
1d1h

"will have to bake their own bread at home now" would be the most correct way of saying it IMO (native American)

hahajk
0 replies
1d8h

Baking bread is more correct, but in my experience "to cook" is generic enough to include baking. If someone has something in the oven and I ask "what are you cooking?", it's not weird.

On the other hand, "cooking bread" is like 2/10 weird.

john_the_writer
12 replies
1d12h

It's a scale difference. If you're making bread product for a million people you have a massive factory.. And nuts be there

portaouflop
6 replies
1d12h

Of course, everything weird and whacky about the US can be explained because it’s just so much bigger - you wouldn’t understand coming from such a tiny country.

robertlagrant
4 replies
1d8h

The psychology of this comment aside, I don't think any country is so small it can't fit a massive factory in it. Unless you're writing from Vatican City, perhaps?

portaouflop
3 replies
1d8h

My point was that all countries have big factories but in the US they are somehow unable to make sure no cross contamination occurs.

It’s just impossible because US scale /s

robertlagrant
0 replies
1d8h

Are you saying all other countries have zero cross contamination? Can you cite that?

kalleboo
0 replies
1d4h

The EU allows cross contamination with the same "may contain" labeling as the US previously did.

LorenPechtel
0 replies
20h9m

It's possible for the US to take note of it because of scale. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen elsewhere.

RugnirViking
0 replies
1d5h

This exact issue happens in all of the EU as well...

ehnto
4 replies
1d12h

If the regulations had teeth and they weren't allowed to cross contaminate at all, they would build a process that achieves that. Instead they get to put a few labels on there and just accept that they'll lose some customers who are allergic, save some money not building a new process.

kragen
1 replies
1d12h

you have misunderstood the situation and are suggesting that they enact the regulation that they did actually enact, which is the one that led to this situation

ehnto
0 replies
10h6m

No I didn't, I understand what they have done to skirt the regulations but that is what I mean. It's so easy to get around the regulations, even the new one, they have no teeth. It's clear the companies are acting in bad faith but there is no recourse.

If it weren't for companies acting in bad faith, they wouldn't have to play regulator cat and mouse. If you removed the regulations altogether, your big bakers would be even more lax with allergens and people would get sick.

WrongAssumption
1 replies
1d5h

You aren’t following what is hsppening. The regulation does exactly that, not allow any cross contamination. So they are adding sesame as an ingredient and labeling it as such.

ehnto
0 replies
10h1m

I did understand that. The regulations have no teeth not because they lack penalties, it's because they are ineffectual atat achieving the goal.

It is clear what the outcome of the regulations was supposed to be, products with sesame and products without. But they were poorly planned regulations, and the companies are more than happy to work to the letter of the law.

But maybe this is actually fine, because a company willing to cleanly process allergen free product can capture that market segment.

BurningFrog
12 replies
1d12h

You need to judge over-regulation as it relates to society as a whole.

sangnoir
11 replies
1d12h

What are your thoughts on mandatory wheelchair ramps, fire extinguishers or AED machines? Most of society won't make use of those either.

robertlagrant
6 replies
1d8h

What are your thoughts on mandatory wheelchair ramps, fire extinguishers or AED machines? Most of society won't make use of those either.

Are you saying these are examples of over-regulation?

sangnoir
5 replies
1d2h

No.

robertlagrant
4 replies
1d2h

Why are you mentioning them, in that case?

sangnoir
3 replies
22h9m

I was asking parent if they thought those items were over-regulation on the basis of the heuristic they provided, without offering any opinion of my own.

robertlagrant
2 replies
19h48m

You mean this:

You need to judge over-regulation as it relates to society as a whole.

That doesn't seem to be a heuristic. E.g. "wheelchair ramps are cheap over the lifetime of a building, so it's obvious we should add them" is a good justification of something not being over-regulation - the "bang for buck" heuristic. But the quoted text doesn't contain a heuristic, so we can't judge anything based on it.

sangnoir
1 replies
14h31m

The devil is in the details: whose "bang", whose "buck", and who gets the say when the subjective threshold is met?

robertlagrant
0 replies
11h44m

Yes. Of course. Although you're talking now about the thing I said, and not the much vaguer thing you thought was detailed enough to believe it excluded wheelchair ramps.

nox101
3 replies
1d11h

I think like everything, there's good and bad. You didn't translate your previous comment into braille so should I sue you for not catering to the needs of my blind mother?

Having wheelchair ramps at corners, especially new ones, big chains, large institutions, seems great. Forcing the new 1 person boutique down the street to spend $250k+ to add every possible accommodation for language and accessibility, doesn't seem so great.

There are tons of stories of effective extortion over "accessibility" issues

dotancohen
1 replies
1d10h

Actually, I know of at least one HN user who will read his comment in braille. GP provided plain text, which is accessible to braille screen readers. And HN is hailed in accessibility circles as an extraordinarily accessible website, so has a disproportionately large accessibility user base.

nox101
0 replies
1d1h

The point was supposed to be an example of a possible consequence of rules like this. Not a specific example of an actual consequence.

Your comment also suggests the same solution for the bread. If you don't like that there is sesame in it then you should build a robot to remove the sesames. That's the same as saying "I didn't translate my text for you but you can find some other way to get it translated".

LorenPechtel
0 replies
20h12m

Yup. Mandating the inclusion of such features in new construction should be required. Retrofitting is another matter that very well might involve pretty much tearing down structures and most certainly shouldn't be required.

(And note that in some cases "new" construction must work with existing constraints. I'm thinking of a sign I saw in Carlsbad Cavern saying no wheelchairs past this point. The loop that was denied wheelchairs contained a pinch point a wheelchair couldn't go through. Man made the path, nature put the rocks there.)

vasco
3 replies
1d11h

It's only lifesaving if you want to risk your life. If I have a deadly allergy I'm staying away from certain food groups and am not going to leave my health in the hands of some crappy labels. Have something else other than bread. That's how many people I know with allergies deal with it and it seems the most reasonable approach. In this day there's so many different foods to eat, its easy to have variety without risking it.

The_Colonel
1 replies
1d10h

It's not like sesame is used only in baked products. Sesame is used in various candies and desserts, as a seasoning for meat, fish, vegetables, even in drinks. I'm not sure if you can eat healthily by excluding all categories of food where sesame might theoretically appear.

eppp
0 replies
1d5h

You avoid eating things that are risky by preparing them yourself. Which is what I do for my alpha-gal meat allergy.

b_t_s
0 replies
23h46m

Risk your life doing what? Eating? All food allergies are deadly. They might not have killed you yet, but every single exposure could be your last. And plenty of people, especially kids, are allergic to 4, 5, 6, 7 major allergens. Maybe you're familiar with adults who have grown out of all but 1 or 2 allergies & know what to avoid. Try feeding a kid who's allergic to soy, wheat, dairy and eggs. Heck, even just soy. Try to put together a week of meals without soy with our modern food supply. Spaghetti:soy. Burgers:soy. Ice cream:soy. Tacos:soy. Sandwiches:soy. The entire soup aisle:soy. What's left, drinking Ensure for every meal? Nope, that has soy _and_ dairy. Robust accurate food labeling is the only way people with several food allergies can eat a remotely normal and balanced diet without playing Russian roulette at every meal.

kalleboo
3 replies
1d11h

https://www.coop.ch/en/brands-inspiration/diet/intolerances/...

In Switzerland, there are also the following rules regarding trace allergens when declaring allergens: in the event of possible contamination of more than one gram per kilogram of food, the note "May contain traces of ..." must be included. The limit for sulphur is 10 milligrams per kilogram and for gluten 200 milligrams

It sounds like Switzerland does the same thing the US used to do where manufactures have a lazy cop-out? It doesn't sound any stricter at all.

robertlagrant
1 replies
1d9h

Making sure there is less than 10mg per kg isn't lazy. It's really difficult.

jtbayly
0 replies
1d4h

But that’s sulfur.

One gram per kilo for sesame is not hard.

LorenPechtel
0 replies
20h24m

1g per kg is nowhere near enough to protect against bad reactions. Sounds like Switzerland is making a mostly laughable attempt, not doing much.

I have had a rather unpleasant day due to an unknown contaminant in approximately 10mg of material as part of a day's food. Obviously the contaminant was well under 10mg.

isoprophlex
1 replies
1d13h

A life-threatening allergy is fine and all but will someone please think of the profit margins?!

akoboldfrying
0 replies
1d9h

Almost every physical object you use in your everyday life, including the building you live in and the clothes you wear, was created by someone who cared about the profit margins on that thing, and didn't care about you personally at all. If you want to propose a different system for creating the stuff in the world, it might pay to look at the success rates of other systems people have already tried.

Leherenn
0 replies
1d12h

I checked the couple of bread products (from Migros) I have at home, and they all say "may contain sesame"? Maybe that's not a representative sample though.

I'm not sure what the difference is, except the US goes one step further and asks "please don't say it may have an allergen if you don't have to". It results in products definitely having the allergen, but is "may contain" any better than "definitely contains"?

akira2501
2 replies
1d17h

Overregulation + Monopolization is the 1-2 punch in operation here. It's the only reason you'd even think to do something like this.

"Fine. Now _everything_ has Sesame in it. What are you going to do? _Settle_ with us?"

mensetmanusman
0 replies
1d16h

How to fight economies of scale…

ApolloFortyNine
0 replies
1d12h

Too far the other way will likely lead to a pseudo ban on Sesame seeds. It just wouldn't be worth the risk. Or the cost of it will get pushed on the 99.999% who won't die from a single Sesame seed.

I know there's a lot of things that work like this (handicap ramps for instance) but if you don't draw a line somewhere it does get overly expensive.

zeroonetwothree
1 replies
1d16h

There are many small bakeries that offer a variety of options. It seems silly to confidently assert this as you do.

alwa
0 replies
1d15h

That seems like a sensible point to me. At some level, let the Bimbos of the world have the sesame-agnostic mass market—that only strengthens the case for niche competitors who serve this specific market.

If sesame is in fact poison for a specific subgroup, this shifts the mass market option from “eh it’s probably fine, how often does cross-contamination happen” to “definitely poison for me, I’d better seek an alternative.”

grugagag
0 replies
1d17h

And without overregulation those consumer choices wouldn’t be be easily faked?

aiauthoritydev
5 replies
1d11h

Yes it does. It also good for the people with allergies as they can confidently buy that bread.

When FDA declares a new allergen, the top lawyer of the company that has presence from NY to SF seats down with the CEO, they then ask all the manufacturing units to do an audit of the said allergen use and then hire a third party auditor to verify if the allergen is used at all not just at their retail locations but in the entire supply chain. This involves the place where wheat is harvested to the restaurant where the bread is served. For a large company this is a millions of dollars and several quarters of project.

The lawyer and CEO needs to chalk out the plan. If they want to make sure their bread does not contain the said allergen they have to update all their processes right from where they buy their wheat to where they test their bread for the said allergen and retrain their staff, suppliers, QA etc. this adds millions of dollars in additional expenses per year.

Not only all this is complex that makes the bread expensive for EVERYONE, it is also much more prone to error.

It is much easier for your small local company to provide sesame free bread at slightly higher price to those who need it. You wont get it in the middle of death valley but that is fine.

wolpoli
3 replies
1d10h

For a large company this is a millions of dollars

The FDA was expecting that companies spend millions to ensure that the products are free of sesame to help people with allergies, but companies realize that it's easier to just add sesame into their products.

I am not sure the government could do now to help people with sesame allergies. Ban sesame outright from certain products? Mandate that certain companies produce sesame-free products?

VBprogrammer
2 replies
1d10h

Adding an allergen in quantities where it has no meaningful effect is attempting to flout a regulation. It's like bringing money into the country by spitting it among fellow travellers. In a functioning system the authorities would have the power to investigate and use discovery to identify cases where allergens are being added deliberately for no other reason than flouting rules. They should then be able to issue substantive fines to encourage actual compliance.

Its not like adding small amounts of an allergen is a victimless. Lots of people with moderate to serious allergies eat things every day which "may contain" their allergen.

robertlagrant
1 replies
1d9h

It's not flouting a regulation at all. It's the opposite of flouting. It's complying.

fullspectrumdev
0 replies
1d1h

“Malicious compliance” can be read as “flouting” in some cases.

Eg: transaction structuring which is illegal in most places.

InDubioProRubio
0 replies
1d9h

People with allergies and various food diggestion problems are not a real market for bread-makers. As in, they make sense for industrial products that do not spoil fast. Means, packaged goods, with lots of additives, tailored to them and a shelf life going into weeks.

Bread is made fresh every day, has a shelf-life of 3 days tops. The logistics are usually measured in hours. The effort to scrub the bakery, transport the gluten-free/nut-free/whatever every day, seperated is thus non specialized and a huge cost in addition to a production of a small facility. So you can get gluten-free bread by a industrial facility speacilized on it, wrapped in plastic. But you can not get it from your local bakery chain.

Add to that the legal damocles swoard hanging over you and mixed artisanal production of small quantities becomes fiscally irresponsible for small buisnesses. In theory you could open a bakery, tailored to a specific allergy set in a dense urban environment. But the rest of the world, a drive away from you, will not have that option.

WA
0 replies
1d9h

Sure, although these products usually are A LOT more expensive. Same with gluten-free. That stuff costs 3-10x as much as non-gluten free food.

Case in point: Italy has a wheat-rich cuisine and they give up to 140€ per month to people with Celiac disease to offset the higher costs of gluten-free food:

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2019/03/08/the-rise-and-r...

forgetfreeman
54 replies
1d18h

Eh, this seems like a pretty bullshit argument on the part of manufacturers though. My expectation for a food prep area is that I should be able to safely eat off of any surface. This level of cleanliness should eliminate any contaminants from the environment bigger than airborne dust and given how relatively cheap air filtration equipment is a case could be made there as well. In any case sesame seeds are a hell of alot bigger than dust so there's no great excuse to have them wandering from one product line to another.

NaOH
22 replies
1d17h

There aren’t food prep areas when it comes to manufacturing at this scale. There are silos, storage tanks, essentially duct work to transport ingredients from bulk storage to production, and large-scale machinery which is designed to minimize exposure to the environment and people while in use. That’s putting aside the equipment and facilities used to acquire ingredients or store products after production.

Yes, all of this equipment is also designed to be cleaned and sanitized, but these are large surface areas covering large distances. And we’re talking about one little sesame seed which can’t be easily detected if it somehow makes its way into a product, unlike, say, the metal detectors all finished goods pass through to ensure no metal object found its way into something.

Spending time in facilities like Bimbo operates will disavow someone of the idea that the work a company like that does is akin to what happens in restaurants or catering facilities. These are factories where product assembly happens to involve edible parts.

isoprophlex
10 replies
1d13h

These are factories where product assembly happens to involve edible parts.

And looking at the picture of the """bread""" at the start of the article, it shows.

That's not bread, that's an industrial product.

shiroiushi
6 replies
1d12h

Yes, almost all food these days is an "industrial product" at some point in the pipeline. That's the reality of living in an industrial society and not an agrarian one.

lukan
5 replies
1d9h

Not at all. Even in this industrial society it is possible to buy raw ingredients and cook yourself and many people do it.

(and as far as I know, many studies imply that is healthier, than heavily processed food, filled with conservatives, additives and whatever)

shiroiushi
3 replies
1d9h

Even in this industrial society it is possible to buy raw ingredients and cook yourself and many people do it.

Those raw ingredients are also "industrial products". Did you think that bag of flour you bought was hand-milled by someone after they hand-picked the wheat? It came from a factory, just like most store-bought bread.

lukan
2 replies
1d8h

Actually one can buy hand milled flour, but I do not think that makes sense. I am not against big machines (and milling has not been done by hand for centuries). I am against adding all kind of things into my food, that happened to not be proofen cancer inducing yet.

alephnerd
1 replies
1d

It's almost impossible to find hand-milled flour in a store or online.

You might be confusing "Stone Ground" flour which is ground using a machine [0]

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SolMVg3_Ac

lukan
0 replies
23h52m

I never tried to buy it myself, but I know I saw it on a organic market (in europe) advertised as such at least once. Basically, a extremely esoteric niché obviously.

quickthrowman
0 replies
1d1h

Any flour you purchase was processed by Cargill, ADM, or Bunge (or on their behalf). I’m sure there’s artisan grains available for a premium price, but virtually all commodity crops are processed by the big 3 agribusinesses.

It is impossible to avoid industrial food processing unless you grow it yourself.

Animats
2 replies
1d10h

Yes, and this is what a bakery for basic loaves of bread looks like.[1] And here's one for "artisanal" bread, from the same manufacturer.[2] Notice how similar the processes are. The "artisanal" plant has a few more stations, including a "decoration" station where the sesame seeds, etc. go on top. Artisanal plants tend to be more reconfigurable, the same line can produce a few different products.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvPTD2RF5KM

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWTVkL-f91w

ralferoo
1 replies
1d9h

Interesting videos.

Probably the key thing for me is how much of the process in both videos is just exposed to normal air. If sesame is as deadly as some people in this thread are making out and a few grains of sesame dust could kill you, then absolutely the current warning labels seem justified if any loaves are made in a factory that has sesame anywhere. Perhaps there's some in the air, perhaps a worker has some dust on their clothes (which could even affect them travelling to a different factory or even location). What next? Should we demand completely sterile factories and for all the workers to wear full hazmat suits?

It does seem simpler to just allow the labeling to continue with the warning about the possibility, and people with allergies can choose to not eat bread at all, or find a baker who can offer a guaranteed sesame free product. It'll probably cost more to make that guarantee (less demand, limited product range, etc), but if people with allergies want bread so badly that it's worth paying the extra, there will be a sustainable business opportunity. Maybe only artisanal bakers will bother, maybe only those owned by people with the allergies themselves, but if there's an overlap between how much it costs to make that guarantee and how much someone is prepared to pay, somebody will make that business. But if you have an allergy, and you're not prepared to pay for what it costs to protect yourself, why you should expect everyone else to subsidise that?

I say this as someone with allergies myself. I have developed allergies to some common fruits (weirdly, ones I used to love and have eaten for most of my life) that have given me reactions ranging from itchiness to fairly severe throat swellings. I deal with that by not eating those fruits or things containing them. There's plenty of other food in the world that I can have instead.

alephnerd
0 replies
1d7h

It's because the sesame labeling law was lobbied by Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) [0] who are funded by the National Peanut Board, the National Dairy Council, and a number of Soy product manufacturers [1].

Essentially, the sesame law made it mandatory to label for sesame like you would for Dairy, Peanuts, and Soy.

It was a blatant lobbyist attempt that backfired.

[0] - https://www.foodallergy.org/resources/how-fare-advocates-hel...

[1] - https://www.foodallergy.org/corporate-partners

forgetfreeman
5 replies
1d8h

So we're saying what, in an era of atomic scale manufacturing it isn't possible to design a manufacturing line that segregates macro-scale ingredients? I've spent time in pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities. They don't routinely floof active ingredients between capsule lines. Corraling shit the size of a sesame seed is trivial in comparison. So yeah, this is still bullshit.

quickthrowman
1 replies
1d1h

It’s entirely possible, all you need is a separate factory to make products for 0.3% of the population, in every geographical region you bake bread in.

The reason they aren’t doing it is cost, not practicality.

Nasrudith
0 replies
18h28m

Aren't the two basically synonymous? Cost is a proxy for the amount of effort put into it.

shmeeed
0 replies
1d7h

Possible, yes. Economical, no.

krisoft
0 replies
1d6h

They don't routinely floof active ingredients between capsule lines

But isn’t that what we read about regarding athletes being acused of cheating because of cross contamination in pharmaceutical manufacturing?

“Generic Pharmaceuticals as a Source of Diuretic Contamination in Athletes Subject to Sport Drug Testing”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8635962/

jtbayly
0 replies
1d4h

I can’t wait until bread costs the same as drugs per gram. /s

pfannkuchen
2 replies
1d16h

Thank you for the mental image of a loaf of bread getting busted trying to smuggle a machine part out of the factory.

throwup238
0 replies
1d13h

You joke but product theft is always a major concern.

michaelt
0 replies
1d9h

The food industry has special industrial X-ray machines so that if the hamburger meat grinding machine has a blade snap off, you don't send a customer a hamburger with a blade in it.

josefx
1 replies
1d11h

There are silos, storage tanks, essentially duct work to transport ingredients from bulk storage to production

How hard would it be to just have a set of sesam free plumbing for specific products? I mean they also manage to keep a separate sewage line, right??

michaelt
0 replies
1d9h

I don't know about Bimbo Breads specifically, but I do know a lot of manufacturing plants will produce several products on the same production line, in batches.

A brewery that produces several types of beer would have separate fermentation tanks for each one - but might only have one bottling/canning line.

I wouldn't be surprised if bread manufacturing was similar - you might produce 8 different types of bread, but only have one bagging machine.

Of course the entire plant would be deep-cleaned once per day. But you'd be switching between products 8 times per day, so there's not time for an hour-long cleaning every time.

AnotherGoodName
19 replies
1d18h

Hmm I wonder how good the us legal system is if a person insists they fell ill eating a product without a warning label and it goes to a jury trial?

There will undoubtedly be a focus on ‘whether you can be 100% sure there was no sesame dust in the air’. Without a perfect vacuum clean room (that doesn’t really exist) you can’t be. As in even if you’re really fucking clean your probably losing the case in the American legal system.

Fuck it my bread is made with a sprinkle of sesame flour and is known to contain potential carcinogens identified by the state of California.

moregrist
18 replies
1d15h

As a parent of a child with a severe sesame allergy, you clearly don’t understand food allergies and how severe they can be.

If my child ingests sesame, they go into anaphylactic shock and without an epipen administered in minutes they will die.

There are definitely questions of how to best inform consumers that have severe food allergies. But I’ve been really underwhelmed with the dialog here on this.

It would be lovely if HN could keep in mind that for some people, sesame is a life-threatening ingredient. And those people would also like to safely buy bread.

lisper
11 replies
1d15h

If my child ingests sesame, they go into anaphylactic shock and without an epipen administered in minutes they will die.

Please excuse my skepticism, I am asking this out of a genuine desire to become better informed: how can you possibly know this? Unless you happened to have an epi-pen handy the first time your kid ever ate a sesame seed, which seems unlikely, then if this were true would not your kid have died then and there?

jimbob45
2 replies
1d11h

There are kits now with allergens that you can feed your kid to test for this kind of thing[0]. The idea is that you have them eat it in the parking lot of a hospital and see what happens.

[0]https://readysetfood.com/products/stage-1-2-bottle-mix-in

lisper
1 replies
1d6h

OK, but surely not everyone does this?

Here's the thing: if there really are kids out there who will drop dead within minutes of eating a sesame seed, surely some of them will discover this the hard way, i.e. by accidentally consuming a sesame seed and dying. But not once have I ever heard a news report about a kid dying this way, and I can't find any data on how many people die this way. I also can't imagine any reliable way that one could possibly learn that your allergy is so severe that a sesame seed will kill you without having at least some people actually die.

All this leads me to suspect that the belief that sesame seeds are potentially deadly in small doses might not be solidly grounded in facts.

LorenPechtel
0 replies
19h34m

Actually, we can estimate odds even with zero deaths.

The thing is regardless of the trigger anaphylaxis is anaphylaxis. The severity differs, the mechanism is the same. We can see the distribution of reactions and estimate the number that will be lethal even if we have no examples.

(And I rather suspect that a fair number of the lethal cases don't get diagnosed. I don't believe autopsy will reveal what set it off unless the contaminant is obvious.)

itsoktocry
2 replies
1d14h

Good question.

The idea that coming into contact with a seed could kill you seems insane and terrible. Yet where are all the people dying of this? Is the implication that our prevention is so good we are somehow avoiding it? I'm also skeptical.

I'm not denying that it exists, but common knowledge (you literally can't eat peanut butter at school) indicates it's so common. How could this be?

The solution is to stock epipens everywhere.

throwup238
0 replies
1d13h

> Yet where are all the people dying of this?

Based on this metastudy titled Epidemiology of anaphylaxis in Europe, they found the prognosis was:

> Case fatality rates were noted in three studies at 0.000002%, 0.00009%, and 0.0001%.

That's among all cases of anaphylaxis, so the answer is "they are almost nonexistent". It's not even a rounding error. Something on the order of a few dozen people per year for a country the size of the UK and from what I can tell, most of those are due to administration of IV medication where the allergy was previously unknown and much more severe.

[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/all.12272

kortex
0 replies
1d4h

I think part of the confusion is that food anaphylaxis isn't automatic death sentence in all cases, but the risk is that it could be. I have a peanut allergy and carry an epipen. I've been exposed ~5 times in my life but it never was severe enough to deploy it, and instead took benadryl and closely monitored it with epipen in hand and 911 on speed dial. I also know people who eat their allergen occasionally because they just get hives and it's worth it as a treat, and I know people who had severe asthma in minutes after a cross-contamination and needed the epi.

It's just game theory. It's like asking how many metaphorical empty barrels do you want to add to your Russian roulette revolver before you are willing to risk it, the reward being basically "ordinary food". Oh and the risk can suddenly one day go from just causing hives to severe anaphylaxis at a much smaller dose.

Most people who learn of a sensitivity (I learned in elementary school after breaking out in hives from doing art involving peanut shells, the horror to think this is something schools just did!) just don't want to know that badly how dire their allergy is and assume it's life threatening, because it's not worth it to be cavalier.

doctor_eval
2 replies
1d14h

I can’t answer for sesame, but my kid has an allergy to a specific nut, that we discovered after mum picked baby up after handling said nut, leaving bright red welts on their little body. No ingestion required.

Subsequently, immunology department, skin prick tests to identify the specific culprit, “risk of anaphylaxis” posters, and an Epipen - with risk factor based on the size of the reaction, in millimeters, to the skin prick test.

lisper
1 replies
1d14h

Thanks.

shiroiushi
0 replies
1d12h

Yep: instead of a bunch of downvotes, that was exactly the right kind of response to your question. Those of us who don't have these kinds of allergies (or kids with them) would have no clue about this kind of thing, and that response summed it all up very well.

tiltowait
0 replies
1d14h

With some allergies, they become more acute on subsequent exposures. Think first time you break out in welts, second time you have a hard time breathing, third time you die.

moregrist
0 replies
43m

It’s usually the second exposure that causes the reaction.

There are plenty of anecdotes of close calls. EMTs carry epipens for this reason. And occasionally it’s tragic when one is not administered in time.

But ingestion is not the only way to learn that you have a severe allergy. Skin contact with the allergen with usually result in bad hives. When this happens with a child, it’s scary and tends to result in an appointment with an allergist, who can assess the severity with skin tests and blood draws.

I had an epipen on-hand when my child ate hummus the second time, and started going into anaphylactic shock. They had had a bad hive reaction to spilled milk, so we had already seen the allergist for milk allergies, which were severe enough to warrant an epipen.

It was a terrifying event, and I am very thankful that we had the epipen and that my child did not have a second wave reaction.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK
2 replies
1d14h

No, you don't have a right to buy bread in your situation. Take responsibility, assume labels lie, and bake all the bread yourself.

sakjur
0 replies
1d10h

If we’re starting going down this path, what if the flour also lie and mix in an unknown quantity of sesame? Should families have to devolve into living in a feudal pocket society?

I think it’s fair for the regulator to be hard on lying on food labels. That seems like a rather low bar for a functional modern society. As consumers, we can also ask companies to provide additional services. There’s nothing irresponsible or entitled in politely asking for accommodation from providers or empathy from peers.

And unless there’s an edit that I’m missing, the person you’re responding to explicitly expressed a desire rather than tried to claim a right.

dotancohen
0 replies
1d9h

I would argue that they have the _right_ to buy bread, but they also have the _responsibility_ to ensure that their child does not eat affected (or possibly-affected) bread.

These labels shift the responsibility. And that is a responsibility that the companies making bread just are not willing to take.

alwa
1 replies
1d15h

From your perspective, has this shift reduced the number of options you’re comfortable feeding to your allergic child?

I guess what I’m asking is, was the previous situation (label indicating the mere possibility of cross-contamination) enough of a risk that you avoided those foods, before this labeling shift?

And has the availability changed post-regulation as far as brands or bakeries that lean in to being conscientious about this risk?

moregrist
0 replies
1h17m

From my perspective, it’s been a mixed bag.

On the one hand, sesame is clearly listed on major brands so we can buy bread with more confidence. Before, there was always some hesitation when shopping with unknown brands. Even known brands can change formulations, which could make shopping feel very uncomfortable.

On the other hand, some brands have started intentionally adding sesame. That sucks. But it may also indicate that a real cross contamination risk has always existed.

It’s important to note that not all brands add sesame, and that not all store brands add sesame. So it hasn’t meaningfully reduced our choices. And I do hope that brands intentionally adding sesame will reconsider at some point.

LorenPechtel
0 replies
19h39m

And how does this farce of a rule help you child? Not at all!

You think that somehow this will make sesame-free bread. Nope, that's too expensive. They responded to the FDA's garbage by throwing a pinch of sesame in. Apparently some manufacturers didn't manage to throw enough in, or perhaps the detect threshold isn't sensitive enough. Throw that pinch of sesame into enough bread and it might not be detected even though it's there.

If there was an adequate market for sesame-free bread you would already see it. Nothing is stopping a manufacturer from opening a sesame-free bread factory--that is, nothing but a lack of demand.

rising-sky
6 replies
1d18h

Indeed and pretty disingenuous from the bakeries. Mislabelling as containing allergens when it does not can lead to a false sense of security or comfort in consumers. In that they may potentially consume an item and discover that it is labelled for the allergen, and subsequently assume that the lack of a reaction indicates tolerance. Potentially, leading them to consume accurately labelled products expecting the same non-reaction

brookst
2 replies
1d17h

If I'm understanding you correctly, the concern is that someone who has e.g. a peanut allergy will eat product A which is labeled as containing peanuts despite not having any, and then decide they must not be allergic so they can eat product B which is also labeled as containing peanuts but actually has them, and have a bad outcome?

This seems a stretch. If the person is eating food labeled as containing an allergen, do we really care whether it is product A or B that produces the bad outcome?

dboreham
1 replies
1d16h

Disagree. There's a concept of people "growing out of allergies". I think it's at least plausible someone could eat product A without checking the label, then subsequently read the label and assume "well I must have grown out of that allergy" and hence proceed to eat product B.

zeroonetwothree
0 replies
1d16h

Allergies depend on the dose so I don’t think most people would think like this.

ajsnigrutin
2 replies
1d16h

Usually those are labeled as "may contain traces of....".

itronitron
1 replies
1d12h

Yeah, and that is just as bad as "contains... " for people that have severe allergies.

The trend for most companies is just to put "may contain traces... " or "manufactured in a facility that also processes... " which will prevent me from buying from those manufacturers.

ralferoo
0 replies
1d9h

That's the intended objective. They don't want you buying the food if there's a potential risk you're going to later sue them if whatever minuscule probability of a contamination event does in fact happen to occur.

They have judged that as a market segment, the revenue they can get from selling guaranteed sesame free products is less than the cost of producing it. Other manufacturers may decide it's worth it if they price their bread higher, and then the issue becomes whether you are prepared to pay the price they are asking to cover the increase costs.

Remember at the end of the day, what you eat is a choice. There's no reason why you have to eat bread, but even if you choose to eat it, making the choice to buy more expensive hand-made bread rather than the ultra-processed mass-produced stuff is usually much better for your body in ways other than just not containing sesame.

infecto
1 replies
1d17h

I know its easy to blame the manufacturers but I don't believe they are entirely at fault here. Its not so much the size alone but that in these facilities they are not being cleaned after every run. Certainly the products that spoil are getting sanitize appropriately (eggs, dairy etc) but uncooked grains I suspect have a much larger time line for cleaning.

Ekaros
0 replies
1d13h

Lot of these things are dry ingredients. So they do not even need same level of standards as anything wet. They keep well enough and earlier in manufacturing chain things are much worse. Just think all of the places your average wheat grain go trough from field to finally being baked... Many parts do not have the strictest standards of steam cleaned stainless steel...

kortilla
0 replies
1d18h

Pre-baked grain is not handled with those standards

creer
0 replies
23h55m

That's really not true. In both ways, too. It's not realistic.

In the specific case of gluten-free vs normal flour, you might have a clean, safe kitchen but flour flies everywhere and it doesn't take much. The solution for a gluten-free kitchen is to only use gluten free products. I know of a restaurant that offers both gluten free and plain pizza crust and people who need to should know what that means: they try but it's not.

It's also not realistic as to "safely eating off surfaces". That's the goal and that's what test kits test for - but that's the point: the test kits are there because it's hard to achieve (and excess will result in contamination from cleaning products.)

postmodest
46 replies
1d5h

This is the same issue as Prop 65, and while we can all say "oh the law is bad" the real problem is _corporations are lazy_.

Instead of making sure their products are safe, they just say everything is unsafe, because they know consumers will become numb to it.

Our food shouldn't contain allergens, and our computer mice shouldn't give us cancer, but instead of taking the time to make sure of that, companies just tell us the products are dangerous, because they know we don't really have a choice.

They have the money and the capability, but they choose profit over consumer safety, and that's THEIR sin, not ours.

konschubert
11 replies
1d5h

I don’t know what the margins on bread are, but I would bet that they are tiny since this is a competitive market.

Meaning that this kind of medical-lab-style cross contamination protocol will either raise the cost of the product or reduce the variety and choice.

mgkimsal
8 replies
1d5h

Meaning that this kind of medical-lab-style cross contamination protocol will either raise the cost of the product or reduce the variety and choice.

If the result is a safer population, why wouldn't we want this?

gwbas1c
1 replies
1d4h

If the result is a safer population, why wouldn't we want this?

There's an anecdote that an AI was asked to make trains safer, and it decided that the trains should never leave the station.

Quality of life involves some risk. IE, you need to exercise, but you might injure yourself doing it.

LorenPechtel
0 replies
20h43m

Remove the top and bottom stairs.

weberer
0 replies
1d2h

Would you like a law that says everyone must wear a helmet when going outside?

sroussey
0 replies
1d2h

If the result is a safer population, why wouldn't we want this?

The best way to a safer population is making cars illegal. So many deaths.

smsm42
0 replies
11h2m

Because if you can't afford "safe" bread, your only choice is very unsafe one. This scenario have been played out many times, when hyper safety prices people - usually the most vulnerable - out of the market and they have to seek poorly regulated unsafe grey or black market alternatives.

crabbone
0 replies
1d3h

I worked in two commercial bakeries: Angel and Berman in Jerusalem. The first mostly makes sandwich bread, the other one mostly makes pastry.

This will be probably relevant to answering your question: if you want to realistically prevent cross-contamination, you will need separate set of everything, that is, a separate room with mixing bowls, separate ovens, and, well... the same employees won't be going between those two rooms, so, you need to hire more people to man more equipment.

I was hired into both of these bakeries as a non-skilled labor who was paid minimum hourly wage. Baking bread isn't a particularly luxurious business. It's out there with agriculture, where margin of profit is very low, and your only hope is scale. Also, you cannot really increase bread consumption by baking more bread. The market is easily saturated. So, by forcing a bakery to, essentially, split in two, hire extra workers and install extra equipment, while in the end they'd not be able to sell more product is going to be very expensive. Maybe not even affordable.

Now, consider that a very small minority of people buying bread care for it not being accidentally contaminated with sesame seeds, and your non-allergic bread will either have to cost ten times more than normal, or it won't be made at all. Needless to say that people with allergies will, likely, not want to buy overpriced bread. They might just not eat bread at all, if that's so dangerous.

Verdex
0 replies
1d4h

Because it doesn't necessarily result in a safer population. This is software engineering par for the course. Just because you want some software to have some feature doesn't mean that the other requirements and/or reality will cooperate and give you a desirable outcome.

For example, coral snake antivenom. For quite a while the US only had a single coral snake antivenom on the market because it was made by a company that was grandfathered in. The new(ish) FDA rules made developing a new coral snake antivenom not something anyone wanted to do.

So of course the one existing vendor when out of business.

Last I heard (around 2022) people were trying to come up with a new antivenom but thus far have been unsuccessful.

Prescribing that things be safer doesn't force reality to conform and we have examples of this occurring.

NovemberWhiskey
0 replies
1d5h

... because at some point, the gains in safety are infinitesimal and the reductions in quality of life are large.

twic
1 replies
1d2h

I don’t know what the margins on bread are

Well they're usually called crusts for starters.

joshdotblack
0 replies
1d1h

Bravo

quietbritishjim
8 replies
1d5h

Our food shouldn't contain allergens, and our computer mice shouldn't give us cancer

These things are not comparable. While adding sesame to everything to circumvent a law is certainly not fair, it is a reasonable ingredient to some products (whereas mice that give us cancer is, at the very least, not a goal). I like sesame buns! And, for young children, it's actually quite important to expose them to a range of allergens because shielding them makes them much more likely to develop allergies.

radicality
3 replies
1d1h

I’m European, and have been living in the US for a number of years and in Europe before that. It’s like some alternate reality here in the US, where peanuts, bread, and shrimp are out to kill a large part of the population. The article says they estimate 33M people in US to have food allergies which sounds insane to me.

I fully agree on exposure to these allergens when young. Have your child eat wide variety of foods, have them play out in the open and get dirty, have them play with animals, wash hands and keep clean but not to the point of sterility, etc.

One personal anecdote - when I was a few years old I apparently started having a lot of asthma-like coughing symptoms. We got a German shepherd, whom I would then play with, hug a lot, and sleep. My symptoms went away pretty quickly.

Similarly, my parents made sure I eat normal meals and not a ‘child’ diet. Eg I was never allowed to order from a ‘kids menu’. At home, salmon or shrimp for dinner and I don’t want it as a young child? Too bad, that’s dinner, eat that or go hungry (and of course I ended up eating and now love many cuisines and allergic to nothing).

Viliam1234
2 replies
22h29m

It seems like a cultural difference, that in America, corporations are trying to comply with the laws in the most malicious ways, and most customers get angry about the laws rather than about the corporations. Which of course, removes any incentive for the corporations not to act obnoxiously.

Sometimes it doesn't even seem to make sense. For example, one might think naively, that if a website reacts to the law by throwing tantrum and displaying the most annoying dialog ever invented (which by the way actually isn't GDPR compliant), they would just hurt themselves, because their readers would move to different websites. Yet somehow they don't, and other website adopt the same annoying dialog. I am confused, because this isn't how free market was supposed to work.

Could you list the allergens, please? No we won't, because f--- you!

Well, now you have to list the allergens, or you get punished. Okay, so we will list all allergens in the world, including the ones our products don't contain, because f--- you!

Then we update the law so that you also get punished for listing made up allergens. Okay, so we will add as many allergens as we can to all our products, because f--- you!

Always choosing the most aggressive way to comply with the letter of the law while going completely against the spirit.

Meanwhile, in the deep jungles of Eastern Europe where most people laugh at the very idea of a law, if a product contains an allergen, the producers write "this product contains this allergen"; if the product does not contain the allergen, they write "does not contain this allergen"; and if they are not sure, they write "this product may contain this allergen". Sometimes with an explanation like "we are not adding it on purpose, but we process the allergen for some other products in the same factory, so maybe some small amounts accidentally get there".

People should travel a lot, to learn that things that are considered impossible at one place are often considered trivial at some other place.

EDIT:

Half of the comments in this thread is like "stupid law, this is what you get for making laws, clearly the lawmakers never heard about unintended consequences", and the other half is like "in my country (different countries in different comments) this problem does not exist, producers simply label their products honestly".

nequo
0 replies
14h28m

because their readers would move to different websites. Yet somehow they don't, and other website adopt the same annoying dialog.

I’m a minority on this most likely but if a website does this, I close it, unless my life depends on it which it rarely does. The same if a website has so many ads that it blocks the content and I don’t have adblock. Life is too short for these games.

LorenPechtel
0 replies
20h45m

And why do you assume this is dishonest labeling?

The problem is with possible cross-contamination. For some reason the FDA has gone stupid about what was the accepted practice that the label listed other standard allergens processed in the same facility. It worked. If hitting one of your problems could kill you you didn't touch anything with a cross contamination risk. If hitting a problem was simply an unpleasant time then you went ahead.

Companies originally reacted to the FDA insanity by deliberately adding trace amounts of the maybe items so it definitely contained (who benefits? Nobody!), I don't know the trigger for this latest bit of trouble.

bbarnett
3 replies
1d5h

Shawn Woods... now my hero youtuber!

quietbritishjim
2 replies
1d3h

What does this mean?

bbarnett
1 replies
1d3h

Mousetrap Mondays.. I am afraid of cancer causing mice.

quietbritishjim
0 replies
1d3h

That doesn't really answer my question, but it doesn't sound like it has much to do with my comment.

bigyikes
6 replies
1d3h

If the law doesn’t take into account human and corporate behavior, it’s not a good law. It may ultimately be the corporation’s “fault” but that doesn’t change the fact that the law created perverse incentives.

I hear the same argument for the GDPR laws that have resulted in annoying cookie banners everywhere. Sure, it’s technically the website owner’s fault for spying and adding a shitty banner, but… those banners didn’t exist until the law was created.

We need better laws that more wholly account for human behavior.

hot_gril
4 replies
1d

GDPR is the dumbest recent law I can think of. Even if a website has no intent to track users, it's way too hard (aka expensive) to tell if you're compliant without slapping on a banner.

Viliam1234
3 replies
22h24m

it's way too hard (aka expensive) to tell if you're compliant

How hard is it to figure out whether you place cookies on other people's computers or you don't? Even if you can't read your own source code, you could simply install a new browser, visit your website, and then check the cookies on that browser. I don't think it's GDPR that is dumb.

hot_gril
2 replies
21h57m

Cookies alone don't make you non-compliant, it's what you (or anything embedded on your site) do with them. You can also be non-compliant without cookies, but that's not fixable with a banner.

immibis
0 replies
8h9m

And the EU doesn't jump straight to the maximum penalty and gives you plenty of warnings to sort it out if you accidentally don't comply in a subtle way. If it's noncompliant in a subtle way that doesn't actually cause a problem they certain won't even notice.

Look how blatantly Apple ignored the DMA and how long it's taken the EU to pursue real enforcement action. It seems clear: there is no need to *fear* EU penalties unless you are dead set on noncompliance. Honest mistakes don't bring down businesses due to GDPR.

LorenPechtel
0 replies
20h38m

The reality is any web analytics will make you non-compliant.

NovemberWhiskey
3 replies
1d5h

The problem with Prop 65 is that we've delegated plaintiff's attorneys to conduct private enforcement actions. Also that the law requires a warning, but doesn't require an explanation of what the material is, what part of the product contains it, or how you are likely to get exposed to it.

As I mentioned elsewhere on this discussion, this is why pure cotton patches now come with Prop 65 warnings (if you might use them to clean a rifle...)

Rag on corporations all you want, but Prop 65 is a terrible law.

1oooqooq
2 replies
20h8m

it's almost like if corporations could pay politicians to turn good laws into garbage laws, uh?

Nasrudith
1 replies
18h35m

The numbering scheme was a hint: there were no politicians involved with a ballot initiative. This is what demagoguery combined with direct democracy get you.

1oooqooq
0 replies
2h32m

good point, butpropositions don't get created in a vacuum

hollerith
2 replies
1d

Our food shouldn't contain allergens

Every protein is allergenic to somebody, and even some non-proteins are allergenic (e.g., they are small molecules that can get inside a somatic protein, which changes the somatic protein's shape, which makes the somatic protein allergenic).

LorenPechtel
1 replies
20h42m

Disagree. There are proteins that if you're allergic to them your body will turn on itself. You'll be dead and no longer care what you're allergic to.

hollerith
0 replies
20h19m

Replace "protein" with "non-self protein", then, or "any protein in food".

BobbyJo
2 replies
1d2h

_corporations are lazy_

In market terms: "corporations try to be capital-efficient because they are competing with each other over price-sensitive consumers."

practicemaths
1 replies
1d2h

TBF laziness is the natural order to the universe. Ain't nothin doin more than it has to.

immibis
0 replies
8h11m

Yeah, but corporations are paid lots of money to not be lazy.

StableAlkyne
1 replies
1d5h

Our food shouldn't contain allergens

You can pry my gluten-laden, peanut-oil containing, dairy-filled pizza from my cold dead hands!

(The problem isn't allergens, many of which are delicious. The problem is not correctly labeling allergens - I think that's the point you wanted to make at least!)

Atotalnoob
0 replies
1d2h

I have a food allergy (gluten, celiacs).

It’s ridiculous to make everything allergen free. It’s also gross, I hate those products that I dubbed “everything free” that are free from the top N allergens.

They have a place in the market, but they aren’t that good

wnevets
0 replies
1d2h

the real problem is _corporations are lazy_.

But we knew that already. The people coming up with the rules must take that into account otherwise you get prop 65 warnings and cookie banners everywhere.

water-your-self
0 replies
1d4h

Have computer mice ever caused cancer or isnthat hyperbole

solardev
0 replies
20h8m

Our food shouldn't contain allergens

But one person's allergens are another's tasty ingredients. I love my sesame bagels. I don't even know what food would remain if you banned all the allergens. Tapioca powder with beef flavors?

Sesame is one thing. It's delicious but probably not a major subsistence food for anyone. Chinese restaurants would miss their sesame oils though.

Next, it's hard enough to ban fish and shellfish. Many subcultures depend on them, especially near major bodies of water.

No tree nuts or peanuts? A lunch staple gone for millions. Jam will be so lonely.

Or wheat. Or milk. Or egg. Or soy? That's the end of breakfast and bakeries and dessert, I guess. The vegetarians will get awfully hungry.

I think at that point, the only thing left to eat would be the regulators themselves. Karma's never been so tasty...

smsm42
0 replies
11h10m

And that's why we have insane laws. Because of people saying stuff like "our food shouldn't contain allergens" and spewing vague nonsense about evil profitmongers, while enabling demagogues who promote insane schemes built to inflame ignoramuses, like prop 65.

Virtually anything can be an allergen, and a lot of chemicals, given enough concentration and bad luck, can lead to cancer or birth defects. So ignoramuses demand laws that mark any chemical that can be reasonably thought of harming anyone in any circumstance possible in theory, and then blame corporations when the outcome is disastrous.

michaelcampbell
0 replies
6h54m

_corporations are lazy_

Corporations are optimized to make money; doing the non-lazy thing here costs money.

LorenPechtel
0 replies
20h51m

This is the same issue as 65--setting an unreasonable standard and then blaming business when the standard isn't met.

It used to be that when companies produced products in the same facilities that produced products on the allergen list they would label them as "may contain". Not something they added, but not something they promised it did not inadvertently contain.

A company is free to produce products in facilities that do not also process the standard allergens but to do so will be more expensive and few people want to pay the extra cost for something which is of no benefit to them. If you're not allergic to sesame it does not matter if there's a bit of sesame in your food.

The whole food labeling thing is being taken to excess. The FDA is going bonkers about what companies are or are not adding, while there's no requirement for documenting what impurities might remain. As far as I'm concerned the FDA can take their labeling rules and shove them where the sun doesn't shine.

Instead, put a QR code. It comes up with a page that lists what they intentionally added (no generic categories--I know I don't have issues with all "artificial flavors" but I do with some. And "natural flavors" comes in a close second), what cross-contamination is likely and for any refined product what the raw material was that it came from and to what degree it was purified. In addition to the human-readable form it also contains a standardized representation meant for machine parsing. Scan the code with an appropriate app and it flags anything on the list that it has been told to flag.

maxerickson
25 replies
1d15h

They are saying to play by the spirit of the rules instead of working the ref on the letter of the rules.

But businesses could give a fuck about anything other than their current margin.

Putting it another way, the FDA put forth a regulation intended to make the lives of a certain group of people better, and the response was to figure out how to not bother with that.

seanmcdirmid
15 replies
1d15h

If producer A just puts sesame in their products, and that means they can undercut producer B who spends the money to comply with the spirit of the regulation, producer B goes out of business because their expenses are higher.

So what do you expect would happen? Consumers like cheaper rather than higher prices, this isn't a new thing.

harimau777
13 replies
1d14h

Pass regulations that prevent producer A from undercutting producer B?

stoperaticless
8 replies
1d13h

How? Forbid sesame seeds for everybody?

tuukkah
7 replies
1d11h

Not a bad idea actually. If some people can die of sesame seeds, the rest of us can manage without, sprinkle the seeds on our bread at home or bake our own bread if we can't live without sesame seeds.

dialup_sounds
2 replies
1d5h

Apply that logic to more common allergens like wheat, eggs, milk, or soy.

tuukkah
1 replies
1d4h

Why? The cases are very different regarding different allergies, allergens and product categories.

dialup_sounds
0 replies
6h40m

I don't think they're that different. The muffin I had for breakfast contained wheat, milk, egg, and sesame oil. Salicylate intolerance is at least as common as sesame allergy, so let's toss in the blueberries, too.

shiroiushi
1 replies
1d8h

If you're going to do that, then you need to ban all prepared foods from having any kind of allergen, because someone might die of it.

That means bread made with wheat is now illegal, because some people are highly allergic to gluten. If you don't want gluten-free bread, you'll have to make it yourself.

Also, you can't have any food with shrimp or shellfish. Peanut butter is now illegal (but you can make it yourself). Pistachio ice cream is illegal.

Not only is wheat bread illegal, but any baked good can't be made with milk either, since some young children are allergic. And you can't substitute soy milk either, since some babies are allergic to that too. Baked goods in your proposed future sound really awful, quite frankly.

Gluten-free baked goods made with potato flour are illegal too, since some people are allergic to potatoes. So french fries are also illegal.

Some other things you won't be able to have either in a pre-made food, or at a restaurant: - celery - carrots - pumpkin - mushroom - onion - garlic - bell pepper - fish (so apparently you want to ban sushi restaurants too)

So I'm curious, in your vision of the future, what exactly do people eat? Beef and lettuce for every meal?

tuukkah
0 replies
1d8h

Nice collection of straw-men, but elsewhere in discussion it has been made clear how the situation with sesame in bread is not comparable to your cases.

netmare
1 replies
1d9h

If A can die from sesame seeds and B can't and the A-to-B ratio is something like 1:1e+6, doesn't it make more sense for A to bake their own bread instead?

tuukkah
0 replies
1d8h

"Bake your own bread" - does not solve the situation when you want to travel, eat out etc.

Most bread types don't contain sesame seeds so why let the sesame seeds contaminate them and cause life-and-death situations?

Proposed legislation: allow large-scale production and sales of sesame seed bread only if you produce and sell more sesame-free bread.

thworp
0 replies
1d10h

Do you have any idea about how expensive it is to audit your entire supply chain to ensure that it is 100% free of allergens? You'd essentially put that cost onto everyone for the benefit of a small minority. I'm sure you can see why that is a political non-starter.

seanmcdirmid
0 replies
1d11h

You aren’t wrong, but it isn’t workable. Regulations can become very specific to prevent loopholes in compliance, but to the point that the government is just driving the business and it might well be socialized.

mhb
0 replies
1d13h

Making food more expensive might have consequences.

Ferret7446
0 replies
1d13h

Like how we passed regulation to get to this point? And we will pass regulation for the new loophole created by this regulation, right? And we'll keep doing this, as the overhead to comply with regulation gradually increases and prevents small competitors from entering the market as they cannot afford to meet the regulation overhead? Of course, we will address this problem with new regulation.

maxerickson
0 replies
1d15h

I totally expect people to be assholes about it, don't worry. That's what I'm getting at, people are assholes.

Should we be proud and happy about that? Apparently.

causality0
8 replies
1d15h

You have a legal duty to not poison people by telling them there aren't allergens in their food when there might be. You don't have a legal duty to create a hypoallergenic product line. Regulations exist to protect your rights, not make your shopping experience more convenient.

maxerickson
6 replies
1d15h

Oh, great, people are living up to their legal duty, I'm so proud of them and totally won't think they don't give a shit about other people if they do the cheapest thing that satisfies the regulation.

kgwgk
4 replies
1d15h

People are going to buy the cheapest option that satisfies the regulation. If giving shit about other people means systematically buying more expensive options they won't give any.

maxerickson
2 replies
1d14h

People can buy whatever they want, it's the producers changing their recipe or labeling that demonstrates not giving a shit.

They aren't changing their recipe to make their product better or cheaper, they change it so that they don't have to deal with compliance. That's the not giving a shit.

hot_gril
0 replies
23h42m

Right, the breadmakers don't give a shit about this. That's ok, the breadbuyers like me don't give a shit either.

brazzy
0 replies
1d13h

They are changing the recipe in order to keep the product cheap, because compliance on this would be really fucking expensive, requiring completely and permanently separate facilities for products that contain each specific allergens and those that don't.

jusssi
0 replies
1d13h

This is food. It has so many more quality dimensions than price point and regulation compliance.

causality0
0 replies
22h25m

If they did start adding small amounts of the ingredients in question, admiration for their malicious compliance would make me more likely to buy their product, especially if it's also the cheapest. They have two options: acknowledge that perfect isolation is an unrealistic goal for their facility, or put aside some money for a legal fund for when their unlabeled food eventually kills someone.

itsoktocry
0 replies
1d14h

What's an allergen? Or, more interestingly, what isn't an allergen?

mc32
18 replies
1d17h

This feels like it’s going the way of prop 65. To be on the safe side, everything gets the label, thus making the label pointless -it no longer helps differentiating things.

treflop
8 replies
1d13h

I don’t think prop 65 is super useful but I don’t get why people think it’s meaningless.

I’ve definitely seen prop 65 on things that made me pause because nothing about the object (like a food bowl) should give me cancer and often I won’t buy it.

s1artibartfast
7 replies
1d5h

That's kind of the point. There very well could be nothing wrong with that food bowl and someone slapped a label on it for no reason at all. Literally without meaning.

treflop
3 replies
1d3h

Except because of prop 65, I learned that some bowls actually do have some lead in them due to their glazes or coloring…

And that the label was probably correct.

s1artibartfast
2 replies
1d2h

You say probably and I guess that guesswork is what it comes down to.

I think that p65 warnings are only slightly better than random in terms of identifying risky objects. I would guess they are only applied half the time if the item contains a known chemical, and half the time it contains a chemical, it has no label.

Also, the threshold is so poor, you have no idea if an item is actually dangerous even if it is correctly used.

Last, it is pretty unclear what they mean. When I walk into a p65 building, does that mean I am taking a real risk, or that I shouldn't eat the building because the paint contains lead. Same for the bowl.

treflop
1 replies
1d2h

But isn’t that the case with everything? You can’t take anything at face value and never in history have you ever been able to.

When you read a news article, you have to know about the publication before you can contextualize the article.

When you read a restaurant movie review or rating, you have to know what the general average is and trends of the source before you can interpret the rating.

When you read about some food being healthy, you need to know if they mean nutrient wise or calorie wise to contextualize “healthy.”

Just reading hackernews, you know how people on here swing about different issues so when an article comes up on one of those issues, you know how the comment section may perceive the issue.

To me, prop 65 is just another thing that provides a signal if you want to contextualize it.

s1artibartfast
0 replies
1d1h

Sure, nothing is 100% trustworthy, but that doesn't mean everything is equal either. What I am saying is that p65 are an especially bad and noisy signal. The definitions provided by the state are garbage to start with, and then the utilization by private parties is especially inconsistent, with a large number (perhaps even a majority), using the label when they shouldn't or failing to use it when they should.

hot_gril
2 replies
23h30m

But most bowls don't have P65 labels. I only see those at very cheap places like Daiso. What gives?

s1artibartfast
1 replies
20h48m

That's kind of the point.Daiso may just have a corporate policy of slapping a label on all of their import products for Customs inspection. That doesn't mean it's any more dangerous than the $100 Bowl bought at farmers market or West Elm with a leaded glaze but no warning.

My point is that both over and under use of the labels is so rampant that you can put very little trust in them.

hot_gril
0 replies
19h19m

How are real businesses selling bowls with leaded glaze and no warning? Not referring to a farmer's market but something like West Elm. If they're getting away with this, then yeah, the law is broken. If Daiso is just over-using the label, maybe they shouldn't do that if they want to sell bowls.

PaulHoule
3 replies
1d17h

No, I see canned peaches with a P65 label and I see canned peaches without them. Same for fried snacks.

mc32
2 replies
1d17h

Are those labels based on periodic random testing or based on risk avoidance?

What proportion of these labels are false positives?

LorenPechtel
0 replies
19h50m

We dumped lead all over the environment. You can basically assume anything grown has lead, the only question being how much. Likewise, mercury. In some areas there's a lot of arsenic.

Most everything high on the periodic table is nasty. The few that we willingly associate with are because they are non-reactive enough to not actually pose a threat even if in theory they're harmful. (Consider the use of barium to image the digestive system. They use a form of it that's sufficiently insoluble that you don't get poisoned.)

ergocoder
1 replies
1d13h

There is no penalty for over-labeling. Maybe some lost sales. Not a big deal.

But there is a huge potentially downside for under-labeling e.g. people dying. There is an ethic issue here as well even if we ignore money.

Also, the production pipeline is not 100% perfect. They produce millions of items each year. Even with 0.001% defect / cross-contamination, it could be troublesome.

More importantly, the exec who decides to under-label might end up in jail if people die from their decision.

Basic game theory really. If I'm an exec who is paid millions of dollars a year, I wouldn't risk it. Big deal if I earn a little less.

Unless FDA tips the scale and provides some guarantees, this warning means nothing. If FDA really wants to punish for over-labeling, I'd start adding a really small allergen, so the warning becomes accurate lol.

LorenPechtel
0 replies
20h2m

The basic problem here is that there are three categories of people:

Those for whom X is fine/those for whom X is undesirable/those for whom X is deadly.

We used to have three categories:

contains/may contain/doesn't contain.

Draw this as a 3x3 matrix.

Those for whom X is fine don't care, they can eat any row.

Those for whom X is undesirable generally do not care about cross contamination. The risk * loss is low enough not to be important.

Those for whom X is deadly will not eat from the may contain category.

The FDA appears to have declared war on the may contain category. Who wins? Nobody. Who loses? Those for whom X is undesirable who are now no longer able to know that the item is probably fine.

I think they are operating under the fantasy that removing may contains means companies will ensure it isn't there, but that's an expensive endeavor that the marketplace simply doesn't call for.

AdamN
1 replies
1d11h

That's sort of the boogeyman way it's been interpreted but the other way of looking at it is that those items really are carcinogenic. And it's not the 'give a rate 100x the amount anybody could possibly digest and of course they get cancer' trope either - these really are substances that have cancer risk and they're very common in modern life.

LorenPechtel
0 replies
20h0m

But they're not all over the place like you would think from the 65 nonsense.

The vast majority of cases are trace levels of low risk materials. Never mind that in most cases you're facing a lot more risk from natural materials.

MaximilianEmel
0 replies
1d16h

That's how it already apparently is, and this is supposed to mitigate that.

aiauthoritydev
18 replies
1d11h

The safest thing to do is to actually add the allergens to some degree and then warn people.

nindalf
13 replies
1d9h

The article says that is precisely what they did and the FDA found that it violated the spirit of the law.

RenThraysk
9 replies
1d5h

No where in the article does it say allergens were added. If they were then the labelling could not possibly "misbranded".

crote
8 replies
1d4h

From the article:

Because it can be difficult and expensive to keep sesame in one part of a baking plant out of another, some companies began adding small amounts of sesame to products that didn't previously contain the ingredient to avoid liability and cost.

So yes, to avoid having to prevent cross-contamination, they started intentionally introducing trace amounts of allergens.

mrweasel
6 replies
1d4h

That seems like the actions of a psychopath to be honest. I struggle to comprehend that someone would care that much about profit that they would intentionally introduce a "contamination", rather than ensuring a correct labeling and clean environment, making their product safe to consume to those with certain allergies.

Jiro
2 replies
1d2h

Ensuring a "correct labeling and clean environment" is really expensive. I mean, really expensive. It's not going to be practical.

mrweasel
1 replies
22h22m

I quite frankly question if that is true. A family member is allergic to eggs, as in "he will die if eggs have been near food he consumes". Local bakers have absolutely no issue producing cakes and bread for events when he asks and the prices difference is negligible.

LorenPechtel
0 replies
20h33m

Because they aren't running a production line. And eggs don't make dust.

Produce an item, clean your utensils before the next time. Minimal cross-contamination issues.

A production line processing sesame will create a certain amount of sesame dust. Ensuring that dust gets nowhere near other production equipment is expensive.

RenThraysk
1 replies
1d4h

It has nothing to do with profit, as it'll just increase the price of the goods to the consumer.

b_t_s
0 replies
1d3h

and lose profit. If they spend the money to run a safe production line and pass the cost on the the consumer they will loose market share to the company that runs an unsafe production line & keeps the price the same. It's also especially expensive if the do it quickly. It's been a few years, so fortunately some of them have actually gotten around to updating their production lines by now. T hey just did it slowly in the cheapest, least disruptive way possible.

b_t_s
0 replies
1d3h

Sociopathy is probably a more accurate diagnosis than psychopathy. And corporations are inherently sociopathic. By definition their primary motive is profit and there are often strong incentives on those in charge to ignore ethical considerations. It's probably the #1 reason we have consumer protection, and environmental protection laws.

RenThraysk
0 replies
1d3h

Ah genuniely missed that line, though as the FDA states is legal.

JoeAltmaier
2 replies
1d9h

Or admit the law that was being applied was actually 'the law of unintended consequences'.

somedude895
0 replies
1d8h

The class of the anointed will never be able to admit to themselves their hubris.

Y_Y
0 replies
1d8h

They should ban unintended consequences, that'll work out fine.

simonbarker87
2 replies
1d5h

But that’s such a pain in the but for those of us with a mild sesame problem.

If it says “may contain” then I’m fine. If it’s listed as an ingredient then I can’t risk having it.

For people who can’t have any at all you’ve not improved the situation but at the cost of making it significantly worse for people with a mild reaction.

ensignavenger
0 replies
1d1h

The FDA doesn't allow "may contains" for possible major allergen cross contamination. If the allergen is listed as "may contain" the FDA still requires all of the same costly manufacturing separation practices.

The FDA should either allow "may contains" labels to be used, or create a new category that can be used.

dwallin
0 replies
1d4h

Although by adding small amounts of possible allergens to a bunch of common food items you help reduce the frequency of future generations developing the same allergy. So it's a bit of a mixed bag there.

b_t_s
0 replies
1d3h

Safest from a corporate liability perspective, not from an inadvertently killing kids perspective. What you're suggesting is precisely what substantially all brands did with sesame, and it's why my family stopped eating hamburgers and hotdogs for several years...because we were literally unable to buy buns that would reliably not kill my daughter. The bread situation was almost as bad. We eventually found 1 brand available at 1 store and were able to feed her sandwiches once again. Now it wasn't much of a risk for our family because we understand how deadly allergies can be and we read ingredients carefully. But for kids whose parents are less careful, some of them die, particularly when there are zero safe options and you don't know if manufacturers are really adding the allergen or just saying they do for legal reasons(both were common). And it sounds like you may be referring to the common belief & research around early/small dose exposure helping kids avoid/outgrow allergies, but what's often lost in those conversations is that it sometimes works, and sometimes makes the allergies worse or even kills you, and nobody has the faintest clue why or which will happen to you. That's why the research generally includes allergen+medication, because the medication is necessary to avoid accidentally killing some percentage of the patients.

beAbU
7 replies
1d10h

(Non US)

On almost all food labels that I've seen for the last decade or so I've seen disclaimers like "this product is made in a factory that processes $ALLERGEN"

Usually $ALLERGEN is "tree nuts".

quietbritishjim
2 replies
1d5h

Sure, that's the sort of thing that the FDA were complaining about. From TFA:

FDA officials acknowledged Tuesday that statements that a product “may contain” certain allergens “could be considered truthful and not misleading.”
mathgeek
1 replies
1d3h

The "may contain" line is not the part that the FDA takes issues with. From the source complaint:

The Brownberry brand Whole Grains 12 Grains and Seeds RTE bread loaf product is misbranded for a similar reason; the product label includes walnuts, almonds, and hazelnuts in the ingredient and “Contains” statements; however, these nuts are not ingredients in the formulation of the product.

Emphasis on "Contains", which is a separate line on the packaging from the "may contain" line.

ensignavenger
0 replies
1d1h

It isn't part of this complaint, however the FDA regulation explicitly says that labeling food with "may contains" is not good enough for major allergen cross contamination, which is why companies added them to the "contains" section, and why some companies are actually mixing allergens into he ingredients so they can legally add them to the contains section. (In this case, the bakery appears to have just added the allergens to the contains section without actually adding them).

The FDA should either 1) Allow the use of "may contains" for major allergen cross contamination. Or) Create a new category, such as "Possible cross contamination" that would be considered good enough. This would remove the incentive to deliberately add allergens while allowing proper labeling.

However, there are some lobbyist groups that want to force companies to use separate factories for any foods that contain major allergens, making those foods cost substantially more than they do now to produce. So the of us without allergens can either eat tasteless sterile food (likely leading to more folks with food allergies do a lack of exposure), or to pay out the wazoo for the privilege of eating normal food.

mattmaroon
0 replies
1d7h

We have that too.

lewispollard
0 replies
1d7h

Same in the UK. For example, it's not uncommon to have food items that are certified as vegan, with a warning that they may contain traces of milk due to cross contamination - for most vegans, this is acceptable.

LorenPechtel
0 replies
20h37m

Which is how it should be. But the FDA isn't allowing that anymore.

Beretta_Vexee
0 replies
1d8h

(France) "trace of nuts" "may contain accidental presence of nuts" "made in a workshop that processes nuts"

Certain products specifically for allergy sufferers have strange messages such as "non-quantifiable presence of an allergen". A PCR test can detect traces of a product's DNA, but it is impossible to quantify its volume because it is so small, or to trace the source of contamination.

They can't say there aren't any, there's no defined threshold or it's not possible to clearly quantify the quantity.

paulddraper
0 replies
1d16h

Rather than minimize cross-contamination, as they argue the law requires, many big food brands have opted to add sesame to their bread products, then simply declare it as an ingredient.

Right.

Bimbo has not been actually adding the allergen to the product. Presumably, they will start explicitly adding it, so the warning will be proper.

hot_gril
0 replies
23h34m

This reminds me of software services that intentionally avoid exceeding their uptime SLOs so they don't set dangerously high expectations.

Molitor5901
97 replies
1d21h

This seems like splitting hairs on the part of the FDA.

FDA officials acknowledged Tuesday that statements that a product “may contain” certain allergens “could be considered truthful and not misleading.” Bimbo officials have until July 8 to identify steps taken to remedy the issue — or to explain why the labeling doesn't violate FDA standards.

So a baker.. who adds (insert allergy ingredient here), in minute quantity so they can legally say it contains it, is still in the wrong because that product does not normally contain said ingredient?

What is a baker to do? I think it is wholly unreasonable to say a baker cannot say on the product that the product may contain traces of an ingredient, when they cannot 100% say it does not. This just seems like splitting hairs and unnecessarily penalizing the baker.

We should want a food maker to list all possible allergens that could be present, not just are present in the foods.

utensil4778
78 replies
1d21h

This is about sesame. Last year or so, the FDA changed the rules about sesame as an allergen. Some bakeries then decided to just slap "may contain traces of sesame" on everything so they didn't have to pay the cost of actually ensuring there's no cross-contamination.

This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame. Now there's effectively no way to know if a baked product will actually contain sesame, so you either get to eat nothing or take the chance.

It was a clear and flagrant abuse of the "may contain traces" mechanism. The bakeries caused harm for consumers as a way to avoid the coats of doing business safely.

infecto
21 replies
1d20h

It was a clear and flagrant abuse of the "may contain traces" mechanism. The bakeries caused harm for consumers as a way to avoid the coats of doing business safely.

My view is that the business should be able to decide who they want to service or not. According to recent US studies, 0.2% of the population have a noticeable allergy to sesame. Seems like bakeries don't want to invest money for such a small percentage. It sucks but this opens the door for new bakeries to cater towards those with this specific allergy. Why does the government need to force business to do it?

jasinjames
20 replies
1d20h

The number might be 0.2% for just sesame, but roughly 10% of Americans have some form of allergy[0]. I'm guessing the reasoning here is to attempt to prevent "allergen creep", where the endgame would be major manufacturers throwing their hands up and listing most products as possibly containing many allergens (or, as in this case, intentionally introducing unnecessary ingredients). If this were to happen, we would expect a number approaching 10% of consumers to have a needlessly large selection of foods they couldn't reliably purchase, even if there would be negligible risk otherwise.

At that point, the usefulness of requiring the labels to begin with is considerably diminished. Having a cottage industry of "actually correctly labeled" foods because the standard labels are poorly enforced seems inefficient, IMHO.

[0]https://www.foodallergy.org/resources/facts-and-statistics

int3
17 replies
1d18h

even if it were 10%, we shouldn't expect 90% of consumers to subsidize the other 10%

mitthrowaway2
6 replies
1d18h

I'm not sure how to separate this mindset from one that would have commercial buildings not be required to include elevators and wheelchair ramps. Do you also think that's an unfair burden to put on the roughly-90% of people who are not mobility-impaired? (Not implying any judgement either way, just curious if this is a consistent viewpoint).

olalonde
3 replies
1d15h

Do you also think that's an unfair burden to put on the roughly-90% of people who are not mobility-impaired?

Not op, but I share his view and don't think commercial buildings should be forced to accommodate people who are mobility-impaired.

Elinvynia
2 replies
1d11h

Then you should hope to never become mobility impaired :)

Remember, we are all just temporarily abled and one accident away from needing accomodation from society.

olalonde
0 replies
4h30m

I doubt it would change my opinion though. It's a matter of principle for me.

hot_gril
0 replies
1d

Exactly. It's like insurance, even if you have no sympathy, you're probably ok paying a little for other people's accidents because you could just as easily have one. Allergens are different, though.

int3
1 replies
1d18h

I think one difference is that there isn't a great alternative option in the case of commercial buildings -- if you have a job in a given building that doesn't accommodate your disability, you can't just go find a different building. But insofar as food is concerned, you could pay more for more carefully-manufactured food, or just cook for yourself

ozgrakkurt
0 replies
2h11m

But then you are putting that burden on those people. You don’t have to work in that commercial building either you can find another job for example

valicord
4 replies
1d18h

I guess we should repeal the Americans with Disabilities Act then?

bnralt
1 replies
1d18h

Yes? If the government can find a better way to help people with disabilities, great. But small business being sued because a booth is 6 inches too small, or universities having to take down lectures because they lacked close captioning seems to clearly go to far to me. People seem to have a terrible time understanding diffused societal costs and opportunity costs.

throwaway173738
0 replies
1d4h

I don’t think either of those things is in the spirit of the ADA. ADA requires reasonable accommodation. So if it would be unreasonable, the law says the accommodation isn’t necessary. What I see in those two instances is judicial overreach and a college not wanting to appear insensitive.

Some day if you find yourself with limited mobility you will be thankful the ADA requires the things it does, because you would find it challenging to live in society without it. The market of “disabled people wanting to shop in a store” is vanishingly small and totally unserved without at least some regulation. I’m sure it offends your free market principles, but the free market isn’t the best thing for all of us.

int3
0 replies
1d18h

unironically. would love to have those berkeley lectures back online

Der_Einzige
0 replies
1d4h

You won't like how popular such a repeal would be. Americans really hate the less fortunate of their society.

daemin
4 replies
1d9h

This sort of thought implies not believing in insurance of any kind. Why should people pay into a common fund when only a small percentage of them will ever use it.

int3
3 replies
1d4h

People generally don't develop allergies randomly in life. There's no insurance value here.

daemin
2 replies
1d2h

People can develop allergies during their lifetime, it's not just something that you're born with. There's also ongoing studies trying to desensitise people's allergies so that they can deal with foods more easily. So a person's allergy status can and does change during their lifetime.

But my message was about the general principle of insurance being the very thing your comment was against. The situation where the vast majority of people pay some cost of which only a few need to utilise.

int3
1 replies
1d1h

People can develop allergies during their lifetime, it's not just something that you're born with.

Sure, but the likelihood of that is low enough that insuring against that isn't worth it for most people

But my message was about the general principle of insurance being the very thing your comment was against. The situation where the vast majority of people pay some cost of which only a few need to utilise.

No, the principle of insurance is that people pay to hedge against some event that has a reasonable likelihood of happening to them at some point. Whether it's a majority or a minority paying for it is not central to the concept of insurance.

daemin
0 replies
8h47m

Insurance only works if the majority pay but only the minority get paid. Anything else and you risk not getting paid if the event occurs.

mensetmanusman
0 replies
1d16h

If this happened where we added allergens to all foods, it might actually help in the long term.

altairprime
0 replies
1d17h

This can’t be resolved by the FDA; the systemic issue is that industrial baking is permitted to operate facilities at monopoly scale. Breaking up the Bakery Belles would absolutely lead to the return of distinctions between different facilities that enabled sesame-free production to exist in the first place.

hollerith
17 replies
1d21h

Now there's effectively no way to know if a baked product will actually contain sesame

You are catastrophizing. It remains the case that any baked product that doesn't have "may contain traces of sesame" on the label must by law be free of traces of sesame. And if no producer chooses to produce such a product, then it is because the number of people who want it is quite small (or the costs of complying with regulations is too high to make a profit), and it is not hard for someone to bake their own bread.

marshray
16 replies
1d18h

No one wins by some percentage of the population having to bake their own bread.

If these facilities cannot keep unwanted visible particulates like sesame out of their products, how can they keep dirt and bacteria out?

This regulation is not only good for people allergic to sesame, it's a brown M&M test. I see value in it.

brookst
6 replies
1d17h

how can they keep dirt and bacteria out?

They can't. It's statistically impossible. Even operating theaters and clean rooms can't keep every trace bit of dirt or bacteria out. All anyone tries to do is reduce the incidence to below a meaningful threshold.

If the requirement is: either eliminate every last molecule of every offending substance, or use a label that the offending substance may appear in trace amounts... well, everyone is going to opt for the label.

marshray
5 replies
1d16h

I didn't say "every last molecule", I said "visible particulates".

Nice attempt to straw-man though.

stoperaticless
4 replies
1d12h

Not a straw man if you look at the spirit of the argument.

marshray
3 replies
1d12h

Yes, that's exactly what strawmanning is:

"Ignore the stated argument, discuss my weaker mischaracterization of it instead."

stoperaticless
1 replies
1d9h

Have you cooked anything? Have you never ever had a hair fall into a pot your mixing? (Even if you always wear a hat, and always clean it before hand, there is non zero chance)

Spirit of that previous parent message was that “never ever contaminated” is not a realistic option.

Yes op stretched that to molecules, but exactly same argument applies to seeds.

I guess you forbid any kind of hyperbole in 50m radius.

marshray
0 replies
1d1h

I have worked in food service and we were required to wear hats or hairnets specifically for that reason. If it had happened that some foreign material had fallen in the food, we would have considered it a big problem.

In restaurants, little pieces from the metal pot scrubbing pads tend to be a constant problem. But this represents a cost choice: more expensive scrubbing solutions are available.

throwaway173738
0 replies
1d4h

What happened to the idea we should take the most charitable interpretation of a post? I thought that was in the community guidelines here.

ryandrake
4 replies
1d17h

If these facilities cannot keep unwanted visible particulates like sesame out of their products, how can they keep dirt and bacteria out?

They seemingly cant. There is a federally allowable amount of rat droppings allowed in food and it is non-zero!

marshray
3 replies
1d16h

Then it should be on the label.

JustBreath
1 replies
1d4h

Kinda seems like you're arguing just to argue.

marshray
0 replies
1d1h

Unlike your comment, I have a point.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK
0 replies
1d13h

Always ate buckwheat with mice droppings as a child. Yummy.

kalleboo
1 replies
1d11h

No one wins by some percentage of the population having to bake their own bread

Doesn't the rest of the population win by being able to buy cheaper bread, at the cost of the affected?

marshray
0 replies
1d11h

Personally, I don't think bread made in a facility that can't control the ingredients is a 'win' at any price.

erik_seaberg
0 replies
1d15h

Cross contamination includes stuff like fragments of sesame seeds stuck in a corner of a conveyor belt or air duct since yesterday's production run. I don't think cleanroom baked goods would be affordable.

Ekaros
0 replies
1d12h

Bacteria is not actually that big concern. These are cooked products, meaning that their temperature can reach 82-99C. So unless there is clear uncontrolled growth the cooked product is safe.

underseacables
11 replies
1d21h

If it says it on the label, and you're allergic to it, then you shouldn't eat it. This doesn't harm consumers at all.

Detrytus
7 replies
1d21h

It does harm consumers by severely limiting their choices, especially if companies start putting the warning on every product by default, instead of actually making reasonable effort to prevent contamination.

starttoaster
3 replies
1d20h

You couldn't write a more perfect allegory for what has already happened due to California's Proposition 65. The common denominator here is that the government gives companies new rules to follow, and enforces severe penalties for breaking them, and so the companies minimized their risk by following them to the extreme.

It's almost like if you want a different outcome, the government agencies involved need to step up and do a more thoughtful job of architecting these policies in a way where the companies are forced to follow the "spirit" of them.

I can't be mad if I create a policy, and someone follows it. My intention should have been in the policy, not just implied.

inferiorhuman
2 replies
1d19h

  The common denominator here is that the government gives companies new rules
  to follow, and enforces severe penalties for breaking them, and so the
  companies minimized their risk by following them to the extreme.
Hardly. Prop 65 initially contained minimal guidance and essentially no teeth. So rather than identify problematic chemicals companies just slapped generic Prop 65 warnings on everything.

  architecting these policies in a way where the companies are forced to
  follow the "spirit" of them.
Prop 65 was updated so that companies were required to put specifics on the warning label. The state even went so far as to start enforcing the requirements, and then…

  I can't be mad if I create a policy, and someone follows it.
And then the state got sued because apparently labeling your products is simply more difficult than legal action.

Molitor5901
1 replies
1d19h

Prop 65 DOES contain teeth, of the worst possible kind. It works by an attorney finding a product without a Prop 65 label. Then the law firm sends a demand to the state that the product have the Prop 65 label. If the state does not take action, then the law firm may take private action by suing the company to force them to have the label, and get all of their legal expenses paid for by the state. It's lead to an entire industry of attorneys suing just to get the attorneys fees.

inferiorhuman
0 replies
1d15h

Can't tell if you're serious or not. Private complaints must be reviewed by the local AHJ and include a certificate of merit. Folks being sued privately have 2 weeks to add labels. This is, of course, after waiting 2 months for the government to take action.

Hardly the worst kind of teeth.

thrill
0 replies
1d20h

And what is the FDA definition of "reasonable" that will keep the ambulance chasers away from their businesses?

javier123454321
0 replies
1d20h

I suppose we have different definitions of harm. Providing a product which might contain an allergen and notifying you of that possibility is not harm in my book.

baggy_trough
0 replies
1d21h

Your definition of reasonable may differ greatly from those who must perform said efforts.

zuminator
2 replies
1d13h

If there's no way to disambiguate "actually contains allergen X" and "almost certainly doesn't contain allergen X," then rather than being extra-cautious, eventually consumers may come to carelessly disregard the warning text, assuming (correctly) that it most likely falls under the second case. The harm ensues when the heuristic fails.

stoperaticless
1 replies
1d12h

That I feel is on the consumer as business just does a full disclosure.

The business discloses, what was added as ingredients, and what contamination is possible. (Because production line is shard or similar)

What more do you want?

I guess results of regular random testing could be put online.

Forbid using same knife to slice different things is another thing to be done.

Spivak
0 replies
1d3h

What more do you want?

That the labeling disambiguate "made in a factory that makes sesame products" and "actually contains sesame." What we now have with "may contain" could be either and everyone is worse off

starttoaster
9 replies
1d21h

It was a clear and flagrant abuse of the "may contain traces" mechanism. The bakeries caused harm for consumers as a way to avoid the coats of doing business safely.

In the exact same way that every product ever invented may cause cancer in California, I assume? This is a problem with the FDA, not the companies. Give a dog a long leash, they're going to use the slack.

heavyset_go
5 replies
1d20h

Companies aren't dogs, companies have obligations that they need to fulfill and they're choosing to neglect them.

starttoaster
3 replies
1d19h

Companies aren't dogs

Metaphor, but sure, quite literally they're not dogs. Very true.

companies have obligations that they need to fulfill and they're choosing to neglect them.

From our eyes they're neglecting to follow the spirit of a policy. From their eyes, they're following it to the letter of the policy. Perspective.

Molitor5901
1 replies
1d16h

AFAIK you are required to follow the letter of the law, not the spirit. Whatever spirit moved the legislature into approving a law is secondary to the actual wording of the law. If congress wanted people to follow "the spirit of the law" then they should have made the law more explicit, instead of leaving it up to the FDA to decide what's the right spirit to have.

wombatpm
0 replies
1d15h

For my friends everything! Fir my enemies the law!

zeroonetwothree
0 replies
1d16h

Presumably the majority of people that don’t have sesame allergy would prefer to pay less for bread so I’m not as clear that “our” and “their” are different here.

stoperaticless
0 replies
1d12h

I like sesame. Should sesame be banned world wide because 0-5% are allergic to it? (I assume: no)

Can company choose to produce sesame products? (I assume: yes)

Can company choose solely sesame products, without doing sesame-free stuff? (I assume: yes)

If new regulation comes along, and business deems new requirement is unacceptably high, can it pivot to a different market where it can reuse same investments? (I assume: yes)

Law can be flawed. (Because people definitely are)

Maybe it can be improved? E.g. require random testing, and then say there are 7 seeds in every 100000 of pies.

derbOac
2 replies
1d19h

This was on my mind a lot when reading the article.

I'm not sure how I feel about this all.

The problem with the cancer-causing substance labels is some companies are saying their products contain cancer-causing substances when they clearly do not. At this point the label almost doesn't mean anything anymore because you can't tell if they're just putting it on there to prevent lawsuits, or because it actually does. So I could see a regulatory agency issuing fines for false labeling. It dilutes the meaning of the labeling.

On the other hand, if there is a company where some contaminants might be present, and they don't want to bother selling their products to people with allergens, I can see why they might be honest and say something like "this product may contain X" or "this product was manufactured in a facility where X is sometimes present". It's sloppy in terms of allergen cross-contamination but I can respect their decision to be sloppy and honest.

The tricky part is when one morphs into the other, or where you draw the line.

As an exercise, consider a company that just prints on its ingredients label "this product may contain..." and then just lists all the ingredients of all the products they make, or might be in the facility. That too would be abusing ingredients labels but would in fact technically be true. At some point someone has to call nonsense and where that is I'm not sure.

ryandrake
1 replies
1d17h

The problem is that naive lawmakers/voters believed that forcing companies to say “may cause cancer” or “may contain allergens” would be enough to cause customers to flee or enough to shame the companies into changing their products, but in reality, companies feel no shame and just happily add whatever labels they need to and continue to sell their shit.

Forcing disclosure doesn’t stop companies from doing bad things they have to disclose.

alephnerd
0 replies
1d7h

No.

It's because the sesame labeling law was lobbied by Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) [0] who are funded by the National Peanut Board, the National Dairy Council, and a number of Soy product manufacturers [1].

Essentially, the sesame law made it mandatory to label for sesame like you would for Dairy, Peanuts, and Soy.

It was a blatant lobbyist attempt that backfired.

[0] - https://www.foodallergy.org/resources/how-fare-advocates-hel...

[1] - https://www.foodallergy.org/corporate-partners

hn_throwaway_99
8 replies
1d16h

The other (cheaper) alternative is to deliberately add sesame flour, which some bakeries are doing, according to the article.

So what do you think is better:

1. Label bread with the "may contain" label. Meaning, truthfully, that people with severe sesame allergies shouldn't eat it.

2. Add sesame flour and then add a "definitely contains" label.

I think #2 is much worse from a "significantly harms consumers" perspective.

bsder
7 replies
1d14h

That's not necessarily true. It depends upon the severity of the allergy and the percentage of people with mild vs severe allergies.

If you have a mild sensitivity, the added sesame may be below your threshold. Now you know that the sesame is controlled so you can always buy the product.

The problem is that the people with severe allergies expected that the new FDA rules would have manufacturers significantly retool to avoid cross contamination. Everybody with two brain cells to rub together predicted that they would absolutely not retool and would just add trace amounts of the contaminant.

kgwgk
6 replies
1d14h

If you have a mild sensitivity, the added sesame may be below your threshold. Now you know that the sesame is controlled so you can always buy the product.

If you can buy the product with the added sesame you could also buy the product without the added sesame, could't you?

Nothing changes in that case - while in other cases the added sesame creates a problem. It doesn't improve the situation for any consumer (leaving aside pricing).

bsder
5 replies
1d13h

If you can buy the product with the added sesame you could also buy the product without the added sesame, could't you?

No. That does not follow.

Before, with "may contain sesame" the product might or might not contain enough sesame to trigger your reaction as it was completely uncontrolled. Sure, 99 times out of 100 it was fine but when somebody ran sesame burger buns on the third shift it would make you barf for 48 hours. You simply cannot eat that product on the off chance that it might be bad even though 99% of the time it is fine.

After, you know there is exactly X amount of sesame and never more than that. You can test the product once and it either affects you or it doesn't. At that point if it doesn't affect you, you can buy the product and be confident that it won't change.

Manufacturing 101: Anything that isn't measured isn't controlled.

kgwgk
4 replies
1d13h

They will be measuring the sesame that they are adding as an ingredient. That's on top of whatever unmeasured amount of sesame was already present due to contamination.

bsder
3 replies
1d13h

The manufacturer will dial the measured sesame so that it will be large enough that "cross contamination" will be a rounding error.

It's fairly easy to get something below a reasonable threshold--run a batch or two without the contaminant and throw them out. After that, the background levels will be below the added ingredient measurement.

kgwgk
2 replies
1d13h

The manufacturer will dial the measured sesame so that it will be large enough that "cross contamination" will be a rounding error.

Sure, the "completely uncontrolled" amount present before - in the "may contain sesame" situation where it was not added as an ingredient - was a rounding error. That's why if you can buy the product now you also could do it before.

bsder
1 replies
1d12h

In the case where someone ran the sesame buns on third shift it very much wasn't a rounding error afterward.

It's not just "adding sesame". It's also going to be things like "specifying the amount of time to run disposable product on the line to get below specified threshold".

It's about consistency. Maintaining documentable 0.001% contamination is much, much harder than maintaining 0.1% contamination.

There is no winning this battle via penalties. If you don't want sesame contamination, you have to make the economics worthwhile. Or simply ban sesame, but you're going to get major pushback on that.

kgwgk
0 replies
1d12h

In the case where someone ran the sesame buns on third shift it very much wasn't a rounding error afterward.

If it is a rounding error compared to the level that you find acceptable now it was a rounding error compared to the level that you find acceptable now.

If 1% plus epsilon is acceptable and you can buy it now, 0% plus epsilon was surely acceptable and you could buy it before.

Ferret7446
1 replies
1d13h

So maybe the FDA shouldn't have changed the rules if it significantly harms consumers?

And I don't see how it harms consumers. These foods that may contain traces of sesame, had always might have contained traces of sesame. So are traces of sesame dangerous or not? If they are, then consumers shouldn't have been eating these foods to begin with. If they aren't, why are the FDA forcing the labeling?

Spivak
0 replies
1d4h

I have a friend who is allergic to sesame, this law was really frustrating for her. The brands who purposely added sesame to comply with the law she couldn't eat anymore, the brands that just added the label she also couldn't eat because she couldn't tell the difference between the two. Before the law if sesame wasn't listed it meant it was at worst trace amounts and if it was listed it was off limits.

She isn't "immediately dies on contact" allergic so to solve this problem we had a "loaf party" where we got one of every brand of bread in the grocery store, she would get to try all of them and each person goes home with the rest of a loaf. It was fun all things considered but silly that it was necessary.

So yeah, I have no idea why the fda did this, it seems worse for everyone involved.

stainablesteel
0 replies
1d4h

labeling a product for potential allergens doesn't hurt consumers, its meant to do the opposite otherwise they might hurt themselves if they're allergic to it.

so now we have to play the game that its dangerous to label and dangerous to not label, this hurts producers because they'll be sued no matter what, it just makes business impossible.

eating baked goods is not a right its a preference, capitalism says to find a bakery that suits your needs.

and to be even more split over this, any food content can be some kind of allergen, now that what used to be normal spices are being converted to allergens one at a time we have to make distinctions like this, if i ran a bakery i would just label everything as being made with allergens too because we used to just call them "ingredients"

quickthrowman
0 replies
1d20h

Is a bakery obligated to sell sesame-free products?

If a bakery wants to limit their potential customers by saying their products may contain sesame to avoid liability, I don’t see why the FDA should step in and force them to take on liability and capital costs for sesame free factories.

If the FDA’s current allergen rules are leading to this outcome, perhaps it’s the FDA’s rules that are flawed.

fargle
0 replies
1d19h

This is about sesame.

yes!

This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame.

maybe. more like: "This may have slightly annoyed..."

It was a clear and flagrant abuse of the "may contain traces" mechanism.

nope. absolutely not. the did not say "may" they apparently said "contains". but what do you want them to do if there's a 0.0001% chance of two particles of sesame in a product?

The bakeries caused harm

nope. the FDA caused harm for consumers by regulatory overreach

the result will be one of three things:

1. FDA redrafts the sesame rule to define what is cross-contamination and what is not in a realistic way that bakers will agree to abide by and doesn't have these counter-productive side-effects.

2. Bimbo stops saying "contains sesame" and starts saying "may contain sesame" (the FDA officials acknowledged Tuesday that statements that a product "may contain” certain allergens "could be considered truthful and not misleading.")

3. Bimbo actually adds a tiny bit of sesame as other bakers did and keeps the packaging verbiage the same.

which one is least unhelpful to the 0.2% of people with sesame allergies?

bradleyjg
0 replies
1d17h

This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame.

Their lobbying group caused the problem in the first place by pushing congress to pass unreasonably expensive cross contamination rules.

TeMPOraL
0 replies
1d13h

Now there's effectively no way to know if a baked product will actually contain sesame, so you either get to eat nothing or take the chance.

If they never properly checked their production lines to ensure products without sesame don't contain sesame, there never was an effective way to know that you're not getting a surprise seed in your non-sesame-labeled food.

jjmarr
6 replies
1d18h

America has decided that able-bodied consumers should subsidize people with disabilities; companies are generally expected to make their products accessible even if there's not enough market demand for that to be profitable.

Food allergies are a disability. Some people with food allergies cannot consume sesame.

If you're a baker selling bread where sesame is not an ingredient, slapping "this product may contain sesame on your entire product line" or deliberately introducing sesame seeds into your recipe means a large part of the grocery store is inaccessible to people with a sesame seed allergy.

I don't think that's equitable. Imagine if every company that didn't want to cater to people in wheelchairs only rented office space in historical buildings that couldn't have wheelchair ramps installed.

stoperaticless
4 replies
1d11h

What world do you foresee?

A world where sesame is banned from food industry?

If no (which I assume), then what is the proposal?

“No contaminants” does not seem realistic even in a cleanroom.

justin66
2 replies
1d4h

“No contaminants” does not seem realistic even in a cleanroom.

If the contaminants don't enter the room or touch the equipment, it's quite realistic. It's weird how many people buy into the silly "why are we forcing industry to do this impossible thing?" train of thought even though the thing is clearly not impossible (and it's been shown to be a self-serving lie on the part of some industry players).

We're talking about sesame, not The Andromeda Strain.

bendbro
1 replies
1d4h

So each factory is purpose built to its ingredients OR you pray you don't get thrown in jail because a crumb of sesame was missed in the deep clean and some dysgenic child had an asthma attack?

What's weird is you pretending your model of the world is tied to reality when all it is tied to is ideology. Make bullying legal again.

justin66
0 replies
1d3h

So each factory is purpose built to its ingredients

I'd reject the idea that it's impossible to prevent bits of stuff from moving from one part of a factory to another, such that the only solution is to build a whole new factory.

you pray you don't get thrown in jail because a crumb of sesame was missed

Does it seem to you like America overzealously applies criminal law in the interest of food safety? Do you have any examples of that you'd like to share? Something else seems more accurate: when a problem is discovered and it's widespread enough to represent a danger, companies - usually voluntarily - issue a recall with a description of the risk.

What's weird is you pretending your model of the world is tied to reality when all it is tied to is ideology.

I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.

jjmarr
0 replies
20h26m

Right now, a world where the food industry doesn't deliberately put sesame in food so they can dodge compliance with this legislation. Especially without notice to consumers.

To use the wheelchair ramp analogy, we don't allow businesses to decide to rip out existing wheelchair ramp installations because they're too costly to maintain.

Perhaps we need more prominent labelling on packaging or in stores when a company adds an allergen to a product that did not previously contain it. This would reduce the potential for surprises. Or right now, to address this problem that many people aren't aware of, much more prominent labelling of sesame to sunset in a few years.

Other methods I've heard proposed by industry is establishing a threshold for sesame to be listed as an ingredient.

https://www.fooddive.com/news/sesame-allergen-american-baker...

Most people with a sesame allergy won't have a negative reaction to traces of sesame. Drawing a distinction between a product that has traces of sesame and one that has sesame as an ingredient would allow for easier compliance.

bendbro
0 replies
1d4h

Great point. We should remove all the ramps too, to ensure we remain ideologically pure while having cheap, possibly allergenic bread.

Miner49er
5 replies
1d19h

The food manufacturer is supposed to follow GMP and prevent allergens for being in foods they shouldn't be in.

thworp
4 replies
1d10h

"Prevent allergens" means a 100% certainty that there are no trace amounts. This would require clean-room conditions for the entire factory, deep cleaning everything (including the inside of machinery) between each batch, and doing similarly extreme things across the entire supply chain. How do you think this will be financed?

Miner49er
3 replies
1d6h

This is not the case at all.

It's done for gluten free foods. Gluten free foods have to be under 20ppm to be called GF, and there are many gluten free foods out there. Even some made on the same equipment as gluten containing foods (just cleaned thoroughly).

thworp
1 replies
1d5h

Most gluten-free ingredients come from completely different crops, that are stored and processed in seperate facilities. But even if they weren't, have you checked the prices of certified allergen-free food recently? Even if a large part of the difference is a lack of scale, there would be riots if all foods had to follow those standards.

Miner49er
0 replies
1d4h

I have celiac, I buy a lot of GF foods. There are tons of foods labeled gluten free that aren't marketed as gluten free, and cost as much as normal food because they are normal food that's labeled GF. Only certain ingredients need to be handled specially like you say.

paulddraper
0 replies
22h15m

Gluten free foods are 50% more expensive, and far more restricted in availability.

sn41
1 replies
1d18h

I agree. If I am allergic to sesame, then I would also rather play it safe, rather than try a risk.

By the way, Molitor 5901 is the phone number used by the Jackal to know if he could move, in "The Day of the Jackal", if I remember right.

Molitor5901
0 replies
1d16h

The Jackal is blown. Wolenski talked before dying. Repeat: The Jackal is blown.

jcl
1 replies
1d7h

My understanding of the article is that some companies added sesame to their products and ingredients label, while others may have changed their label to say the product “may contain” sesame — but that Bimbo did neither of these things, instead changing their label to say that the product definitely contained sesame, when in fact sesame was not an ingredient.

Miner49er
0 replies
1d1h

Exactly, most commenters here don't seem to understand this or understand how FDA allergen labelling works. Bimbo would be fine if they just used a "may contains" or actually added sesame to their products (although the FDA doesn't like this.)

justin66
0 replies
1d18h

What is a baker to do?

Keep allergens out of products where they aren’t ingredients.

isaacfrond
53 replies
3d9h

It's may favorite example of unintended consequences.

FDA orders bakers to list allergens. There are stiff penalties if you are allergenic but don't list the allergen.

So? Bakers claim their product contains allergens, even if they don't.

FDA doesn't like it.

So? Bakers add allergens on purpose, so they can rightly claim it contains them.

JohnMakin
16 replies
1d21h

That is pretty funny, in a really sad way.

ganzuul
13 replies
1d21h

It's evil.

llamaimperative
6 replies
1d21h

This is a really counterproductive way to try to understand problems like this.

No one is trying to do anything evil. Every step is individually quite reasonable and well within ethical bounds. The issue is that you can produce systems comprised solely of reasonable and ethical decisions that nonetheless yield an outcome that every actor would describe as bad.

That is a useful way to interpret this situation and others, because you don’t waste your time looking for a boogeyman to call Evil and instead it prompts you to zoom out and operate on the bigger picture.

esd_g0d
2 replies
1d21h

This, a million times.

My dream is "game theory" taught in schools, so we can all more productively discuss public policy, etc.

The field of "mechanism design" may interest those to whom this speaks to. From Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_design):

Mechanism design is a branch of economics, social choice theory, and game theory that deals with designing games (or mechanisms) to implement a given social choice function. Because it starts at the end of the game (the optimal result) and then works backwards to find a game that implements it, it is sometimes called reverse game theory.
llamaimperative
1 replies
1d20h

Have you found any good books on mechanism design for laypeople? I picked one up (can’t remember the name) but it was quite textbooky and mathy, and I’d prefer to start with a more conceptual overview.

sadboi31
0 replies
1d16h

A little adjacent but The Systems Thinking Playbook: Exercises to stretch and Build Learning and Systems Thinking Capabilities might hit.

ganzuul
1 replies
1d4h

The bad outcome can be yielded in a very short number of steps. If perceived and not acted upon, what is that? How long must it go on until we say "No, this is evil."?

llamaimperative
0 replies
1d3h

If perceived and not acted upon, what is that?

It’s a coordination problem.

How long must it go on

They can last indefinitely at immense cost.

until we say "No, this is evil."?

Call it evil for as long as you want, especially if you’d prefer it remain unsolved. When you feel like solving it, a different framing will be much more useful.

CoastalCoder
0 replies
1d15h

I agree with the pragmatism of your suggested approach.

But I think it's a stretch to say nobody is being evil or unethical, because there's no consensus about what those entail.

fragmede
4 replies
1d21h

It's the market being efficient. Markets solve everything, yay!

kbelder
1 replies
1d14h

Markets respond to regulation, and are distorted by it. It's not a problem with the market.

morsch
0 replies
1d12h

Efficient markets enforcing centralized mass manufacturing of low quality baked goods is what caused the problem in the first place.

esd_g0d
1 replies
1d21h

What do you propose instead in this case? Not trying to be snarky, just to get the discussion rolling.

Asking everyone to "play nice" or "don't be evil" also often does not work in practice. I mean I'd love it if it did, but such is life.

fragmede
0 replies
6h33m

I want the FDA to get meta and be empowerd to say if you add sesame to everything just to work around our rules, we'll fine you, because we're not idiots.

daedrdev
0 replies
1d18h

The bakers cannot eliminate the risk of certain production lines from having cross contamination with any reasonable amount of money (like they would need to redo entire factories). So, for those products they introduce the contaminant on purpose to ensure all products that they cannot eliminate the risk for get labeled reduce the chance of someone dying from eating it.

Now I'm not saying thats what they did, perhaps they were scumbags, but its possible they did try to do what I said above and had the best intentions.

ASalazarMX
1 replies
1d21h

At least it gives more certainty than "might contain traces of <ALLERGEN>", which always leaves you wondering.

CoastalCoder
0 replies
1d15h

New meaning for "Wonder Bread".

lylejantzi3rd
13 replies
1d21h

It's closer to:

FDA orders bakers to list allergens. There are stiff penalties if you are allergenic but don't list the allergen.

So? Bakers look at their production processes and determine there's a chance that enough allergens get into the product due to cross contamination to list it on the label, just in case.

FDA doesn't like it. They expect the bakers to fix their cross-contamination issues at great expense to themselves.

So? Bakers add allergens on purpose, so they can rightly claim it contains them. It's cheaper than setting up a clean room for every product line.

starttoaster
11 replies
1d21h

It's closer to:

FDA orders bakers to list allergens. There are stiff penalties if you are allergenic but don't list the allergen.

So? Bakers look at their production processes and determine there's a chance that enough allergens get into the product due to cross contamination to list it on the label, just in case.

FDA doesn't like it. They expect the bakers to fix their cross-contamination issues at great expense to themselves.

So? Bakers add allergens on purpose, so they can rightly claim it contains them. It's cheaper than setting up a clean room for every product line.

FDA doesn't like it.

rufus_foreman
10 replies
1d18h

The only way to fix cross-contamination issues is to have a different production facility for every possible combination of allergens.

Which is insane.

I worked in a factory that packaged food, if one product contained an allergen, there was no way you could guarantee that a tiny amount of that allergen wouldn't get into some amount of the next product on that production line. No way. Not any possible way. You can clean all you want, you can do whatever you want, you can mandate whatever procedures you want, but there's just no way. Even if every half-awake half-sober completely uncaring third shift production worker (like 1990's era me) does everything exactly right, which they won't, even if they actually cared to, which they won't.

The FDA is putting manufacturers in an impossible position, and it's insane.

I have food allergies, believe me, I get it. But there's just no way. If a manufacturing facility produces products with tree nuts, someone with an allergy to tree nuts has to treat every product produced in or near that facility as though it contains tree nuts. That's reality.

The FDA is not dealing with reality. The problem here is the US federal government.

morsch
4 replies
1d12h

It's hilarious to me that it's just a given that bread is made in a factory-like setting as opposed to an actual bakery. They still exist, and some of them just make plain bread, which means they don't handle nuts. I'm sure their product is more expensive, but it's not clean room, vacuum chamber expensive.

An ecosystem of centralized, mass production of baked goods is part of the problem, at least.

ApolloFortyNine
1 replies
1d11h

I'd honestly trust the factory more than the local bakery if a single Sesame seed could kill me. At least at that scale, it'd both have to happen and I'd have to be the one to have it happen for. In a bakery the Sesame seed items would probably be made within 5ft of everything else.

They still exist, and some of them just make plain bread,

Honestly have never seen this, every bakery bakes at least something else that can be described as more than just plain white bread.

morsch
0 replies
1d11h

Well, I live in Germany, so there's that. And admittedly it's quite rare, here, as well.

nottorp
0 replies
1d9h

Out of curiosity, aren't there home use bread making machines in the US?

I used one for quite a while, even though I don't have any food allergies. I just stopped because I was eating too much fresh out of the oven bread.

mort96
0 replies
1d4h

I mean that doesn't make a difference though? You wouldn't want a separate traditional bakery with a separate traditional baker for every combination of allergens either

shiroiushi
1 replies
1d17h

It could be done, but you'd have to treat bread production like silicon wafer production. Bread would become very, very expensive.

thworp
0 replies
1d9h

Don't you start with that. It's the producers that have to bear the cost, if you just don't expand on what happens next, prices will stay the same! /s

CoastalCoder
1 replies
1d15h

The only way to fix cross-contamination issues is to have a different production facility for every possible combination of allergens.

I don't think that's right. You don't necessarily need all 2^n kinds of facilities, because there might not be a commercial demand for products needing every one of those combos.

kgwgk
0 replies
1d15h

One may read "for every possible combination of allergens" as "for every combination of allergens present in the range of products being manufactured".

swatcoder
0 replies
1d12h

You're using industrial language to talk about food staples, and then suggest that the government is the problem.

Bread is flour, water, yeast, and heat. It feeds people. It's easy to make anywhere you have those things, which is... almost everywhere.

It doesn't require production lines or manufacturing facilities or packaging or even freight. All those things are artificial contrivances, and if they make it hard to practically address concerns like allergens, then maybe they're not a viable approach to providing foodstuffs after all.

lupire
0 replies
1d20h

So? Congress passes "CAFE" style standards requiring that every large bakery offer a fraction of their SKUs as allergen-feee variation, or pay a "cap and trade" fee to a baker who does.

brookst
7 replies
1d21h

California proposition 65 is the classic example. Since it requires buildings to warn visitors if they contain cancer-causing substances, and since no landlord can possibly know every substance that even tenant or visitor might have, every building has a "this building may or may not contain cancer-causing substances" placard.

It's surreal and awesome.

Molitor5901
3 replies
1d21h

My favorite is the Marriott in downtown Monterey. This building may contain substances which is known ... Utter crap.

flutas
2 replies
1d19h

My favorite one is in Anaheim.

Everyone ready for a trip to the happiest place on earth?

One of the first things you see walking in...

The Disneyland Resort contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.

https://i.redd.it/utw067xgroh11.jpg

wccrawford
0 replies
1d19h

We saw this on our trip there and had a good laugh about it.

userbinator
0 replies
1d13h

They should just have huge "The state of California contains..." signs all around the state borders.

nonameiguess
1 replies
1d20h

The problems with Prop 65 go beyond that. The legislation itself effectively made no attempt to define what it means for something to cause cancer. The commission put in charge of enforcement ultimately decided it would mean anything that current scientific evidence suggests has a 1 in 100,000 risk of eventually causing cancer if you are exposed to it for an entire lifetime. Subsequent lawsuits clarified that a substance must be included even if the risk is only proven to exist in non-human animals.

Ironically, I never even knew this, but apparently the proposition only exists because Jane Fonda thought it would draw left-leaning voters to the polls to hopefully vote for Tom Bradley over George Deukmejian in the 1986 race for California governor. She and the other proponents didn't even think the proposition itself would pass. But the proposition did pass and Bradley wasn't even elected!

Aloisius
0 replies
1d18h

My favorite part of prop 65 is they decided on a level of a warning when something was above one thousandth (1/1000) of the no observable effect level for anything that can cause birth defects or reproductive harm.

This caused a problem when they added Vitamin A to the list of chemicals known to cause reproductive harm since one thousandth of the no effect level is far below the RDA for pregnant women.

andrewf
0 replies
1d1h

There's a warning when you step off the airplane onto the jetbridge at SFO.

Good luck refusing to get off the plane because you see the cancer warning and decide not to risk it.

mytailorisrich
4 replies
3d9h

I don't know in the US (though it is mentioned at the end of the article) but here, UK, they tend to warn to the product "may contain ..." if there is any chance of contamination and that indeed appears a lot on bakery products and sandwiches.

mrspuratic
0 replies
1d21h

"precautionary allergen labeling" [1]. In EU it's still up to individual countries to regulate it, e.g. Ireland [2]

Use of a ‘may contain….’ statement, or similar, to indicate that the product may contain an allergen as a result of possible cross-contamination, must not take the place of good manufacturing practices (GMPs) in a food business.

GMPs must be in place to prevent cross-contamination

[1] https://www.efanet.org/news/news/4327-efa-responds-to-codex-...

[2] https://www.fsai.ie/business-advice/labelling/labelling-alle...

gumby
0 replies
1d21h

This is common in the US as well, typically worded as "manufactured in a facility that also processes" although the wording you wrote is common too.

chaostheory
0 replies
1d21h

I believe that was the status quo until now.

ASalazarMX
0 replies
1d21h

It's much cheaper than taking precautions against cross-contamination, but weasel words should not be part of disclaimers.

jokethrowaway
2 replies
1d21h

And imagine that it probably happens for every instance of centralisation and regulation in our society - with few people connecting the dots and tracing things back by some well-meaning but clueless bureaucrats

llamaimperative
1 replies
1d21h

This happens all over the place in private industry too. Nothing unique about regulation or bureaucracy that produces effects like this.

If anything, centralization is the best tool to detect and avoid issues like this. Locally, every decision is completely reasonable. It’s only zoomed out that it doesn’t make sense.

L-four
0 replies
1d10h

Centralization is better for most on average or even mean. Often leaving those on the fringe much worse off.

Molitor5901
2 replies
1d21h

Now the FDA is saying adding those allergens on purpose is wrong. Figuratively, it's nuts. I suspect this will end up in court.

ulyssys
0 replies
1d21h

Figuratively, it's nuts.

…and literally, it may or may not be nuts.

Miner49er
0 replies
1d18h

No they aren't. They don't like it, but they haven't done anything about it.

washadjeffmad
0 replies
2d

When a friend whose son has tree and ground nut allergies told me this, I didn't believe it, but to her, it made perfect sense. With the thresholds for anaphylactic response so low, it's costlier not to be able to guarantee that there's no cross contamination than to just add the allergen.

fred_is_fred
0 replies
3d2h

The next iteration will be adding 1 mg of almond flour, 1 mg of peanuts, and 1 mg milk to every ton of dough they make. Then it really will have the allergens.

gumby
47 replies
1d21h

FWIW Bimbo (a Mexican company) is the largest baking company in north america -- when you go to the typical grocery store almost all the baked goods will be from Bimbo regardless of the label (https://bimbobakeriesusa.com/our-brands)

ASalazarMX
23 replies
1d19h

As a Mexican, I'm still salty with Bimbo because I went to Spain, and they sold there better, bigger Bimbo-brand sliced bread than here, including varieties without crust.

It takes guts to keep the brand name in English-speaking contries, though.

The name was formed as the combination of the Disney Bambi and Dumbo films names, which were the favourite movies of Marinela, Lorenzo Servitje's daughter. Later, the founders would find out that bimbo is an Italian slang for children (shortened from bambino), and that in China the word for bread (面包, miànbāo) is similar to the name of the brand.
gumby
7 replies
1d19h

It takes guts to keep the brand name in English-speaking contries, though.

I think they mostly only sell bimbo-branded goods in spanish language shops (where the brand would help sell). In, say, Safeway you only see the US brands they have acquired, at least where I live.

bdw5204
5 replies
1d18h

They actually have the Bimbo brand on the soccer jerseys for the Philadelphia Union which probably isn't good for the team's jersey sales.

ipaddr
2 replies
1d18h

They sell you a jersey for $300 and still put advertising logos?

vel0city
0 replies
1d16h

This is incredibly common with soccer jerseys in many big keagues. And I mean the brand logos on soccer jerseys are often big elements. You'd pretty much have a solid color shirt if it wasn't for the brands in them.

pimlottc
0 replies
1d15h

All football teams do this.

spaceguillotine
0 replies
1d18h

Bimbo-core is actually on trend right now

mperham
0 replies
1d16h

This year the jersey has Thomas’s, the English muffin brand owned by Bimbo.

PopAlongKid
0 replies
1d4h

Orowheat bread at Safeway, the name Bimbo Bakeries is printed just as large as the font for the ingredients list.

Tomte
7 replies
1d13h

And in German, Bimbo is a very racist and insulting word for people with darker skin. Pretty close to the n-word in America.

Ekaros
4 replies
1d13h

In Finland it is insult, mostly for mentally crazy woman... Think of the not exactly bright blond women in tv shows and like.

buildbot
2 replies
1d12h

That’s likely a USA cultulareism that was imported? Or did english steal that word?

shiroiushi
1 replies
1d12h

It's had that meaning in the USA for decades, so Finnish probably borrowed it. The US doesn't get much exposure to Finnish media.

buildbot
0 replies
1d2h

Yeah that's what I figured too.

Anyone have recommendations for Finnish media? Haha

Tomte
0 replies
1d12h

ISO clearly needs to get their act together and start standardizing cross-language insult verbiage.

sureglymop
0 replies
1d2h

The headline is definitely clickbaity. It's just that the trademark “Bimbo QSR” was not approved to be registered. They probably have a blocklist for certain words or such.

OJFord
4 replies
1d18h

in China the word for bread (面包, miànbāo) is similar to ['Bimbo']

Err.. ish? About as similar as 'Hacker News' and 'cake her knees', anyway?

kian
3 replies
1d17h

They are slant rhymes of one another. B and M are phonetically nearby, as are ia and ih and ao and ou. In no way like hacker news and cake her knees -- but more like hacker news and hagger moos ;)

OJFord
2 replies
1d17h

I stand by 'ish' - B is plosive & M is not; that difference is if anything more apparent in Mandarin than English.

Then 'im' is read flat and not like 'ià'.

Of course 'bo' is quite like 'bāo', but that's your 'ish'.

carrotcarrot
1 replies
1d4h

Are you a native Chinese speaker?

I've noticed Chinese are very loose with their puns, and it helps that there is a lot of regional dialect variation in pronunciation.

For example a common one is 520 (wu er ling) being used for "wo ai ni" (I love you)

So I wouldn't put it past them to consider the two words as "similar"

OJFord
0 replies
1d4h

No, very far from it! That's interesting, thanks.

prmoustache
0 replies
1d5h

As a Mexican, I'm still salty with Bimbo because I went to Spain, and they sold there better, bigger Bimbo-brand sliced bread than here,

I have yet to see any Bimbo product either in México or Spain, that would remotely look like bread.

including varieties without crust.

Also WTF.

ammo1662
0 replies
1d12h

Actually, Bimbo has an official Chinese brand and company name "宾堡". The "宾" means guest while the "堡" means castle or fort. "宾" sounds like "bin" in "Bing" and "堡" sounds like "bo" in bottle or boom (not exactly, hard to pickup a word sounds exactly the same). It is a meaningless word which has basically the same pronunciation with "Bimbo".

As for bread "面包","面" means powder of wheat or products made by that. "包" means something looks like a bag, or has some fillings inside. Just not so meaningless. And "面" sounds like "me" in "mean" plus "an" in "and". It is not the same like "宾堡".

JumpCrisscross
10 replies
1d21h

Why are some of their brands just pictures of sandwiches?

lotsofpulp
6 replies
1d20h

Whatever the 7th row, 4th column is, it does not look appetizing.

gumby
3 replies
1d20h

I don't know, cinnamon bread french toast with sauteed apricots and cockroaches is a mix of carbs, fiber and protein, though probably should have more protein for a better nutritional balance.

fouc
1 replies
1d19h

looks like pecan nuts

gumby
0 replies
1d17h

That’s just the vegan version.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
1d20h

They added the cockroaches to get the protein count up.

orange_fritter
1 replies
1d20h

There's probably just some ~Wordpress dev who picked from a selection of B-Roll. The CEO probably marginally understands bread and isn't a raisin french toast peanut butter freak.

Washuu
0 replies
1d19h

raisin french toast peanut butter freak

I want this so badly right now.

Jtsummers
2 replies
1d20h

They're filling out the grid. There are 31 brands (if I counted correctly) which doesn't fill out any grid other than 1x31 or 31x1. They filled it out to 40 because that gives a nice grid at the larger size (4x10) and smaller windows (2x20) while not leaving any empty spaces.

If they kept it with 31 there'd be empty space at any reasonable column count (2, 3, 4, 5, 6). Past 4-6 columns it starts getting too busy across the screen (subjective). They seem to have capped it at 4, it drops to 2 and then 1 as you narrow the page.

One filler image works at each of those sizes, but then it's odd to have a single filler image. Pushing it to 9 gives a ratio approaching 3:1 brand:filler images, someone looked at that and said "That looks better". The filler images are placed, it appears, next to their associated brand (the cupcakes and Sara Lee, as an example).

thfuran
0 replies
1d19h

But cropping to circle/hexagon and offsetting alternate rows, with three rows of five between four of four, obviates the need for weird filler sandwiches. Then you can just tell people with other screen sizes to go away to somewhere with less perfection.

globular-toast
0 replies
1d11h

In other words, 31 is prime ;)

floxy
6 replies
1d20h

when you go to the typical grocery store almost all the baked goods will be from Bimbo regardless of the label

Are those those the only brands they produce? I only recognize 3 of those brands, and I can't even be sure I've ever eaten more than one of those. Maybe they are big only in certain regions?

dragonwriter
2 replies
1d17h

Are those those the only brands they produce?

No, the five brands explicitly marked as a non-exhaustive list (with “such as”) are not, even close to, all of their brands.

https://www.bimbobakeriesusa.com/our-brands

kristopolous
0 replies
1d8h

This reminds me of Georgia Pacific or JAB (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAB_Holding_Company)

You walk down the aisle and think there's 4 or 5 companies in say, paper towels, competing for your business but it's probably just 1 with different brands.

Last time I checked, Whole Foods where I am carried Peet's, Stumptown, Intelligentsia and Keurig coffee, which is all just a single company. Probably comes in on the same truck.

All you gotta do is literally just have different printed labels on things, Look at sunscreen and cough medicine next time you go in.

floxy
0 replies
1d1h

Your link is the same as the one gumby posted. I'm not seeing a listing of 5 brands, and Ctrl-f for "such as" results in 0 matches. On that page, I see 31 brands listed: Thomas, Sara Lee, Brownberry, Oroweat (sic), Entenmann's, Arnold, Lender's, Little Bites, Ball Park, Bays, Marinela, Bimbo, Maier's, Beefsteak, Boboli, The Cheesecake Factory, Mrs Baird's, Heiner's, Emmy's Organics, Grandma Sycamore's, Tia Rosa, Stroehmann, Nature's Harvest, Freihofer's, Wholesome Harvest, Goldminer, The Rustik Oven, Grace Baking, San Luis Sourdough, Alfaro's, and Tenderflake. Is this getting close to all of their brands?

dialup_sounds
1 replies
1d4h

The store brand(s) of a given grocery store is typically made by Bimbo.

"Almost all baked goods" is a stretch, but easily 50% of your bread aisle space is Bimbo. Flowers (Wonder, Nature's Own, etc.) is maybe 25% after that.

floxy
0 replies
22h57m

Is this age of big data, is there a way to quantify this? Like the knowing the annual number of loaves of bread produced by Bimbo, vs. the total number of loaves?

aendruk
0 replies
1d18h

I had the same reaction; recognize 3, knowingly eaten 2 (decades ago), purchased 0. It’s surprising to hear that this is the largest bakery in the US. Maybe bakeries localize well so none grow very large?

demondemidi
1 replies
1d4h

Dave’s killer Bread and Franz are both made in Portland Oregon are not part of Bimbo. I love my city.

dehugger
0 replies
1d2h

Dave's Killer Bread is out favorite :)

The one time I've been in Portland we were drunkenly stumbling back to our hotel when we came across the Franz factory. We spent so long watching the production through the windows that security came and told us to move along! it was absolutely fascinating.

seatac76
0 replies
1d1h

Ohh wow, TIL. This is like that P&G chart, where in one mega corp just acquired majority brands in a business.

mgh2
0 replies
1d19h

What if it is a warning to whomever can die from it? "This food was processed in a facility that contained nuts, milk, etc."

givemeethekeys
0 replies
1d20h

Maybe this is why all these breads use such a large list of ingredients that don't sound like food.

umvi
15 replies
1d21h

At this point it seems like it might be more effective to mandate the opposite: labels that indicate that the product is allergen free for X class of allergen.

That way the default (no label) = might contain allergens, and the presence of the label guarantees your safety.

Companies that take allergen cross contamination seriously can tout the label (and win the business of the allergic), companies that don't won't resort to purposefully including allergens in their product to avoid having to overhaul their cross contamination practices.

NoMoreNicksLeft
10 replies
1d21h

This makes sense from a practical standpoint, but from a litigative standpoint not having the warning label on those products with allergens exposes the company to liability.

I also suspect that if there is an incident, this company might be able to have the government found liable for preventing it from warning customers.

umvi
8 replies
1d20h

Seems to have worked for gluten, at least. i.e. Consumers look for "gluten free" labelling rather than "This product contains gluten" labelling.

If I were the FDA I'd standardize the nutrition label to have a clearly labelled allergen section in which you can reliably use to check that the product is free of X allergen. Of course a naive implementation of this would mean that water bottles and stuff will have a big long list of "gluten free, peanut free, dairy free" so it probably requires a bit more thought.

samtho
4 replies
1d19h

“Gluten free” is a little different because gluten is a protein not only found in wheat, but also wheat derivatives like spelt, semolina, graham, and other grains like barley, rye, and malt.

This is different from a wheat allergy, in fact, its also not an “allergen” in the same way that peanuts are (digestive problems vs anaphylaxis), and would probably be better classified as an intolerance similar to lactose (which is covered by milk but is also an indirect indicator of lactose that can be a false positive because lactose free milk exists).

Miner49er
3 replies
1d18h

Gluten is an allergen for people with celiac, just not IgE-mediated. Celiac shouldn't be classified with lactose intolerance, it's much more serious, arguably more dangerous then even IgE-mediated allergies.

zackbrown
2 replies
1d18h

^ This is correct.

(digestive problems vs anaphylaxis) ... and would probably be better classified as an intolerance similar to lactose

is misinformation — "digestive problems" and "intolerance" drastically understate the seriousness of celiac disease, and contribute to the educational challenges surrounding the condition.

The chronic impact of gluten exposure to a celiac patient include: permanent damage to the small intestine, malnutrition, reduction of lifespan, and significantly increased risk of comorbid autoimmune diseases (MS, diabetes, and more) and cancer.

The acute symptoms span from gastrointestinal symptoms to neurological issues, systemic pain, and cognitive impairment. The reason for all of this is gluten causes the celiac patient's immune system to mobilize and attack the patient, i.e. "autoimmunity." Not anaphylactic, correct, but not a digestive problem nor an intolerance.

stoperaticless
1 replies
1d11h

Did I understand it correctly?

- Single meal will not kill you.

- Continuous use will shorten your life significantly.

(Something like smoking then?)

zackbrown
0 replies
19h45m

Not a perfect comparison, but probably closer to mycotoxin exposure than smoking.

nsilvestri
0 replies
1d20h

As someone who can't eat gluten, we look for that label because gluten isn't included as one of the mandatory allergens in the US. I would prefer if things were simply labelled as "contains gluten" because instead I have to evaluate the ingredients of things without a GF label to see if it's suitable.

kalleboo
0 replies
1d11h

Gluten free is kind of weird because there's a trend of a "gluten free diet" for weight loss among people without a specific gluten intolerance (my wife was doing this for a while after she saw something on Instagram).

I don't think it would be as popular with a "sesame free diet".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet#As_a_popular_...

In the US, it was estimated that more than half of people who buy foods labeled gluten-free do not have a clear reaction to gluten, and they do so "because they think it will help them lose weight, because they seem to feel better or because they mistakenly believe they are sensitive to gluten."
john01dav
0 replies
1d20h

It's fine to have such long lists because the alternative is more complicated rules that might even be subjective. Clarity from subjectivity or mistakes with complicated rules is more important when safety is at risk than having less text on a label.

underseacables
0 replies
1d20h

the government found liable for preventing it from warning customers.

Very interesting idea. I wonder if there is a similar situation in which the government prevented a company from alerting customers to something.

The only thing I can come up with is FISA warrants.

Miner49er
1 replies
1d19h

It's an interesting idea, but the end result would probably be less options for people with allergies (unless they risk foods that appear to be safe, but lack the label.)

We already have this type of labelling for gluten free foods, and one common complaint in the celiac community is that gluten should also be a major allergen. This would help greatly in deciding if a product is safe for people with celiac, since many products are but manufacturers don't bother putting GF labels on them.

zackbrown
0 replies
1d18h

one common complaint in the celiac community is that gluten should also be a major allergen

As a point of interest, most of the developed world already requires labeling gluten as a major allergen. The US is the outlier / laggard.

forgetfreeman
0 replies
1d18h

This position makes perfect sense in a setting where there's broad competition and incumbents that put quality of product ahead of shareholder value. I don't feel like current market conditions meet either of those criteria so you'd in effect just be giving manufacturers an out at the expense of folks with allergies.

Asooka
0 replies
1d12h

The whole problem is that putting any sesame in might kill somebody with a severe enough allergy. There should be some gradation to the labelling, because "contains absolutely no sesame" is extremely hard at industrial scale, but "certified to contain less than Xg of sesame per 1kg of product" would be pretty easy to test and still useful for people who don't die from ingesting a single grain.

eulgro
15 replies
1d21h

I used to work in a cookie factory, we often made products for private brands and in some recipes we purposefully added eggs so that it would appear as an ingredient and not "may contain traces of".

autoexec
8 replies
1d21h

Exactly the kind of thing the FDA has a problem with:

"Because it can be difficult and expensive to keep sesame in one part of a baking plant out of another, some companies began adding small amounts of sesame to products that didn't previously contain the ingredient to avoid liability and cost. FDA officials said that violated the spirit, but not the letter, of federal regulations."

It seems that they prefer the "may contain" wording:

FDA officials acknowledged Tuesday that statements that a product “may contain” certain allergens “could be considered truthful and not misleading.”

As a consumer, I'd much rather know for sure if a food has something in it that could kill me in it. If companies really want add allergens to their products unnecessarily, disclose that unambiguously, and limit their pool of potential customers that seems better to me than companies just slapping on a label saying that the product might contain every possible deadly allergen and letting customers take their chances or avoid them entirely.

kayodelycaon
7 replies
1d21h

“May contain“ often refers to cross-contamination. For some people small amounts of allergens will not cause a problem.

autoexec
6 replies
1d20h

Which is one reason why some people will be tempted to roll the dice and end up dead or in the ER. It's much better to just know if something is in your food that will kill you. It doesn't help that repeated exposure to an allergen can cause a person's sensitivity to that allergen and the severity of their reaction to increase.

Companies who want to sell their products to people with allergies should be required to actually spend the time and money to be reasonably sure that their products won't kill them. Instead companies want to be able to avoid that expense and just slap on a "Probably safe, but who knows?" label and hope that people with allergies will just buy the product and take their chances.

hn_throwaway_99
5 replies
1d20h

This is a very odd take to me given the focus of the article is that companies are explicitly saying "If you have severe allergies, don't buy this product", but the FDA is saying this isn't good enough. That is, the whole focus of the article is that these companies don't want to sell to consumers who may have severe allergies.

Honestly, I side with the companies on this one. It's just a matter of incentives - if the consequence of "getting it wrong" (i.e. saying a product is free of an allergen but then through some chance of cross-contamination that it ends up killing somebody) are enormous, I think it's hard to fault a company that then decides to explicitly add nuts, sesame, etc. to a product and explicitly state "You should not eat this if you have allergies."

More to your point, though, when you say "Which is one reason why some people will be tempted to roll the dice and end up dead or in the ER", I think that's huge hyperbole. Every single person I've ever known that has a severe allergy never "rolls the dice", and on the contrary they are extremely diligent about double checking that what they eat is allergen free. On the flip side, I've known people that have mild allergies to products (e.g. symptoms are on the level of lactose intolerance) who don't worry about avoiding trace amounts of allergens. Why conflate these 2 cases? I have certainly never known actual people with these differing levels of allergies to confuse their issues.

autoexec
4 replies
1d19h

I agree that the FDA got this one wrong and it's just better to have companies add the allergen than just put on a "maybe" label.

The problem with making it okay to just put a "this may or may not kill you" label on products is that more and more companies will do it just to shield themselves from liability regardless of what is in their foods (it's cheaper to add a label and not add an unnecessary ingredient than to add the ingredient and also label your product) so we seem to agree there. When every company has a "this might kill you, but maybe not" label just to cover their asses, large amounts of products are then made off limits to people who don't want to take the risk. When every company is using the "may contain" label as a shield and people start to think "Every company just puts that label on everything even when it's perfectly safe" they will take more chances too.

Every single person I've ever known that has a severe allergy never "rolls the dice",...I've known people that have mild allergies to products (e.g. symptoms are on the level of lactose intolerance) who don't worry about avoiding trace amounts of allergens.

Again, the problem is that when people with mild allergies to products keep eating them it can cause them to have a severe allergic reaction and that leads to deaths and ER visits. It's not hyperbole, it's fact. Repeated exposure can increase severity and sensitivity and so people who feel safe with trace amounts because they have "always" only had a mild reaction in the past do roll the dice and some of them lose. Those people are also less likely to have epi pens to save them when they finally do run into trouble.

All the people you've known are welcome to keep playing that game, but generally the smart thing is to always avoid foods that you know cause your immune system to react no matter how mildly unless you're doing it under care of a doctor.

floxy
1 replies
1d19h

Repeated exposure can increase severity and sensitivity

Where can one learn more about this? I thought allergy immunotherapy was about repeated exposure to the allergen. I'm not up to speed on allergies. Does anyone know how many sesame related allergy deaths there are in the U.S.?

https://www.aaaai.org/tools-for-the-public/latest-research-s...

autoexec
0 replies
1d19h

" Upon repeated exposure the severity of the reaction may increase." (https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...)

"After primary sensitization, the allergic immune response is boosted with repeated exposure" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4414527/)

Lots of other things can effect sensitivity/severity too including age, stress, hormones, etc.

That's why if you're going to try to increase your tolerance to something you're allergic to through exposure it should always be done under the care of a doctor who will explain the risks, including the risk that your allergy becomes worse and your sensitivity to it higher. If the exposure isn't being done under observation you'll likely be given an epi pen. Desensitization therapy can help some people, but because of the risks it's often done for people who already have severe reactions and it can require a potentially lifelong commitment to taking some daily amount of the allergen in order to keep the benefits. It's not for everyone, but I wouldn't tell someone not to at least look into it with their doctor, especially with foods that are very hard to avoid.

stoperaticless
0 replies
1d11h

I foresee a business that produces “all allergen mix”, to be used as default ingredient in all baked products.

int3
0 replies
1d18h

whether it is smart or not depends on the likelihood of it. do you have numbers?

scop
2 replies
1d21h

Any other interesting tidbits from working in a cookie factory? I'm genuinely curious.

dxbydt
1 replies
1d20h

if you must know, there is a policy to handle cookies. There is also a manager for all the cookies. This manager tracks all the cookie handlers. The cookies themselves are stored in a cookie store. While legend has it Arthur Van Hoff designed this whole setup, if you look closely in java.net, the author of CookiePolicy, CookieHandler, CookieManager and CookieStore is actually Edward Wang. Anyways it is not important. Since one cannot maintain a session without session cookie, effectively the entire human population on the internet works in the cookie factory.

galdosdi
0 replies
1d19h

This is why I read Hacker News

ClassyJacket
2 replies
1d20h

Vegans hate this. Always happens with milk powder.

russdill
0 replies
1d14h

As someone with a toddler with a dairy and egg allergy, I also hate this. Almost gave my son BBQ chips once before noticing that this particular brand for some bizarre reason opted to add lactose.

Klonoar
0 replies
14h42m

Not just vegans, lactose intolerant people too (of which there are many).

infecto
9 replies
1d20h

I think this is a sham and the FDA is overstepping. 0.2% of the population have sesame allergies. Maybe its higher the recent numbers I saw from a government study gave this number.

jurassicfoxy
4 replies
1d19h

Isn't it about establishing a framework that people can trust, and closing loopholes? Just because the specifics are about sesame seeds, isn't that how the law works? Some stupid specific case forms the groundwork for the entire system?

infecto
3 replies
1d19h

I don’t know honestly. I understand the spirit of it but I also don’t believe a factory should have to be serve markets that it chooses not too. My point which I did not get to very well is that I think the FDA is in a weird spot. I understand their side but I also wonder how a bakery can legally and with the spirit of the law decide to not serve customers with allergies.

Miner49er
2 replies
1d18h

It's not forced to serve markets. They are just not allowed to say their products contain sesame when they don't. They are mislabeling their products, and the FDA's job is to ensure products are labeled accurately.

s1artibartfast
0 replies
1d16h

Bust saying they don't is a legal claim that they can be sued or fined for being wrong, and brings extra cost to prove it.

Seems like "may contain trace xxx" is a factual statement if they don't ensure otherwise.

infecto
0 replies
1d18h

I am not sure which is why I think its a confusing spot. From the article...

- "FDA officials indicated that allergen labeling is a “not a substitute” for preventing cross-contamination in factories."

- "some companies began adding small amounts of sesame..FDA officials said that violated the spirit, but not the letter, of federal regulations"

Hence my open ended question, how do you legally and with the spirit of the law not serve the allergy market? If you allergen labeling is not a substitute for preventing cross-contamination...what if I as a baker/factory don't care about cross contamination?

Jaygles
3 replies
1d14h

.

kgwgk
0 replies
1d14h

0.2% of the current US population is 6.6 million people.

Math doesn't check out.

If you hosted an event of 500 people, you could expect around 10 people to have a sesame allergy.

Same.

65,000 [...] ~1,300

Again.

kbelder
0 replies
1d14h

1 person, not 10, and 130, not 1,300. Doesn't really affect your point, though.

edwinjm
6 replies
1d21h

You can just label it as "might contain traces of X due to cross contamination". At least that's how they do it in Europe.

alwa
5 replies
1d21h

That seems to be the problem. New regulations [0] would require expensive measures to prevent cross-contamination if your label says that your product carries a risk of cross-contamination.

But it's not "contamination" if it's an ingredient, so if one thing in your factory has sesame in it, you're better off adding a tiny bit of sesame to everything else than you would be scouring the whole line between products.

Presumably the business folks have run the numbers, and you stand to lose less by losing the sesame-sensitive market than you would stand to gain by making everything verifiably sesame-free. For that matter, your sesame-sensitive folks probably are avoiding the product anyway if it "may contain traces," right?

[0] https://www.food-safety.com/articles/8903-fda-updates-guidan....

nox101
4 replies
1d19h

And, if all the big companies only make things with allergens, then a market appears for allergen free products that some company will see an opportunity and fill.

mcmoor
3 replies
1d18h

In lots of disability cases, share of people affected is very very small it's not profitable to cover them. Otherwise the companies would already fight to capture this market.

This is why lots of disability measures are (or campaigned to be) enforced by government. But now we're out of realm of free market and on to production quota, and that comes with its own consequences.

nox101
2 replies
1d17h

Of course the market is small. Not sure what your point is.

My point is it's not profitable for a large company like Bimbo to target that small segment. A smaller company, not trying to compete with Bimbo, can target that segment knowing Bimbo and other large companies are going to stay out of it. I don't understand why you don't see that as a solution. That kind of thing exists all over. Half the products at Whole Foods or maybe Erewhon are from small indie companies catering to small markets of people that want those things. It's arguably no different than a market that carries foods that aren't found at big chains like a market that has product from India or Russia or China.

If the market is too small then either those that need that need their special foods either have to pay $$$$ until there is a market or make them themselves. That seems normal to me. It's not other people's responsibility to provide for your needs.

shiroiushi
0 replies
1d16h

Not only that, but bread isn't a "need". Lots of cultures don't have bread as a significant portion of their diet.

Ferret7446
0 replies
1d13h

Would you be willing to pay >$100 USD for a loaf of sesame free bread?

There is no market for it. You need customers willing to pay the price. A small company, not trying to compete with Bimbo, cannot afford to sell >$100 USD allergen free bread, because no one would buy it.

You're right, it's not other people's responsibility to provide for your needs.

The problem is, the downstream effects of this policy make everything worse for people with sesame allergies, which is the opposite of the intended effect.

flyinprogrammer
5 replies
1d16h

As a father of a 9 mo old with a sesame allergy found out the hard way with a trip to the ER... not only are we making our own bread now because of this, but also, so should you! Store bread has so much unnecessary crap in it, idk why we didn't do this sooner. It's a bummer that we basically can't eat anyone's baked goods outside of the house now, but hey, I guess the market decided I should keep my money and invest in my family, while the rest of you should enjoy the completely unnecessary calories, exposure, and expense of sesame flour.

Also, as far as I can tell, most involved in this sucks, FDA for demanding regulation without investment, lobbyists for supplying a crap solution, and manufactures for not rising above it and rarely caring about the quality of their products.

My recommendation is to boycott store bakery isles in general, invest in $BVILF, and use your kitchen to make friends with your neighbors and get everyone you know making bread/baked goods at home. It absolutely takes privilege to follow this journey, but pay it forward with the bread you can make at home with simple ingredients.

s1artibartfast
4 replies
1d16h

This story is about companies erring on the caution and labeling them with things like sesame even if they like don't contain it.

The cost of proving it is sesame free and fines if they are wrong are not worth your business.

flyinprogrammer
3 replies
1d16h

When companies install a handicap ramp in their business, it also incurs a cost. I don't blame the bread companies for their choice, and I'm in the minority now left with no choice but to boycott, and that's fine, their finance team likely said my dollars don't impact their bottomline, and they're likely correct.

I also understand that a handicap ramp is likely considerably cheaper than retrofitting a manufacturing facility or building new sesame free facilities. It really would have been nice to see an investment from my taxes to lower the cost of this burden to enable new products. Obviously, that isn't going to happen.

My point of also posting was to let you know that you're now also being exposed to sesame flour, kinda without your consent, because they value capital over quality, and that's also their choice, and a choice you're also now participating in.

russdill
1 replies
1d14h

You're not going to get anywhere with boycotts. Write and contact decision makers/representatives, on a fairly regular basis. You might end up just screaming into the wind, but you might also make a difference. A boycott by sesame allergy suffers of companies that aren't mindful will always have zero impact.

flyinprogrammer
0 replies
1d2h

I think I can do both? Especially because I have no choice but to boycott or risk killing my kid? But also, YOU should boycott too, why are you eating food with crap in it?

s1artibartfast
0 replies
1d1h

Why do you think there is no consent? The products are labeled and nobody is force feeding you or your kid the bread.

They might not produce a product that you would like, but that is a lack of interaction, not coercion.

underseacables
4 replies
1d21h

This seems overkill. We should want to encourage food manufacturers to list all possible contaminants.

VBprogrammer
3 replies
1d21h

The driver should be to give people with allergies the information they need to know whether they can eat something safely.

Allowing companies to list every possible contaminant regardless of how likely it is to be in a product doesn't help anyone. It just leads to the "contents may be hot" problem on a coffee.

tracker1
1 replies
1d20h

Well... the FDA won't allow companies to just list "may contain" for sesame, they have to have effectively multiple plants in complete isolation, or... add a tiny bit of sesame to everything and affirmatively state so.

In this case, I prefer the "may contain" verbiage... saying something "does not contain" is a practical minefield. If you're that sensitive to something, find a producer that makes what you're asking for, or if you can tolerate a small amount, or make your own food from basic ingredients.

VBprogrammer
0 replies
1d11h

If you're that sensitive to something, find a producer that makes what you're asking for, or if you can tolerate a small amount, or make your own food from basic ingredients.

The group of people for whom "we take proper control of allergens" is a selling point is a very small one. One of the reasons government exist is to protect people who's interests would not be commercially viable - regulating that building are accessible with a wheelchair etc. Proper allergen control is the cost of doing business in that industry, attempting to blatantly side step regulation should be met with investigation and fines which make doing the right thing the cheaper option.

The idea that someone with an allergy should make all of their own food from basic ingredients is comically naive. Essentially ostracizing them from all social events where food is involved.

s1gsegv
0 replies
1d14h

I think they are now giving people with allergies the correct information… the unfortunate answer is “we are unable/unwilling to control for these allergens, so you can not safely eat it” (whether this is genuinely not economical, or there is simply greed)

The FDA pushes back, as people with allergies shouldn’t be completely shut out from all baked goods. But I suspect they’ll have to tackle the root of the problem and better economically incentivize the control of the allergens if this is the desired outcome, since it seems the market is speaking and it’s saying there’s a problem with just saying “label the food better.”

All of that said, I don’t quite see the answer if the cause is just greed. Maybe in that case the bigger stick is warranted.

rdtsc
3 replies
1d21h

So I don't get it why the bakeries didn't go for the "may contain" wording to start with. I guess one was the first to use "does contain" and then purposefully added sesame, everyone else thought that was particularly "clever" and copied it?

amanaplanacanal
1 replies
1d17h

I believe the FDAs position is that the “may contain” wording was not legally sufficient. The product has to either contain the allergen, or not contain the allergen, and be labeled appropriately. Which is what led to bakeries adding sesame to everything to begin with.

rdtsc
0 replies
1d4h

Ah that explains it, thanks.

I guess we can watch now how bakeries invent a “plausible” need to add sesame. Previously they admitted the true reason why they added sesame and got in trouble so to speak. So now they’ll fund some research or publish some article somewhere indicating sesame makes the bread taste better and point to that as the reason.

underseacables
0 replies
1d21h

I think it has to do with the FDAs' extremely limited authority. To really remove a product, they have to use the federal trade commission to declare something as misbranded. Similar to what they do with dietary supplements.

userbinator
1 replies
1d13h

Adding allergens at a low level to everything may have a positive effect of reducing allergies in the population, a sort of automatic oral immunotherapy. I wonder if the FDA intended this effect, and if it'll lead to more controversy like with water fluoridation.

fergie
0 replies
1d5h

Thats actually a really interesting take.

thih9
1 replies
1d3h

I guess bakeries will now actually add a tiny bit of sesame to everything, seems easiest.

jwilk
0 replies
1d

The article mentions that:

Because it can be difficult and expensive to keep sesame in one part of a baking plant out of another, some companies began adding small amounts of sesame to products that didn't previously contain the ingredient to avoid liability and cost. FDA officials said that violated the spirit, but not the letter, of federal regulations.
sandworm101
1 replies
1d21h

Product idea: Allergen slurry. A tasteless/colorless paste containing all known allergens. Put a tiny drop in every batch of product (or at least claim to) and you can slap on an omni-label dissuading anyone and everyone who has even seen an allergist.

palmtree3000
0 replies
1d5h

They have this for babies! It comes in powder and puff form. It's to prevent babies from developing allergies.

pif
1 replies
1d5h

As far as I can tell, this is what happens any time a new restriction is introduced without specifying who must bear the financial burden.

Checking for allergens has a cost! Who is supposed to pay?

If you want the general public to pay for it, then mandate that every bakery certifies the amount of allergen in their bread: all the bread will cost more and the allergic people will be able to choose safely.

Otherwise, what else would you expect? Bakeries run their calculations and saw that certified sesame-free bread would cost too much for their customer base to keep buying from them, and opening a separate production line is not warranted by the predicted demand. What else could they do to stay in business?

carrotcarrot
0 replies
1d4h

Overregulation is also a cost that can only be bared by large companies, it's contributed to the shrinking number of family farms and small businesses.

ganzuul
1 replies
1d21h

Doing the right thing would be a lot cheaper in the long run because a lot of people have mental problems from diet issues.

Subsidies for common allergens that become cheap filler is another part of the epidemic.

seewhydee
0 replies
1d17h

Reducing the levels of allergens in food very likely has the side effect of promoting food allergies in children, due to lack of exposure during development. That's a strong negative consequence.

donatj
1 replies
1d18h

I mean this sounds like companies are just going to have to start adding allergens to be safe.

kgwgk
0 replies
1d15h

"Because it can be difficult and expensive to keep sesame in one part of a baking plant out of another, some companies began adding small amounts of sesame to products that didn't previously contain the ingredient to avoid liability and cost."

turing_complete
0 replies
1d9h

Interesting name for a bakery

spaceguillotine
0 replies
1d18h

Having allergies in the USA is already hell thanks to the media, so many people will think you're full of it but no really i'll be bed ridden for a day with nausea and a migraine, which means i just never go out to eat now due to the awkwardness of explaining it all.

rsynnott
0 replies
1d17h

Recently saw something labelled as being made in a facility with ‘all allergens’. Which raises questions; in particular what are they doing with those cats?

(I assume they meant all of the EU’s list of Interesting Allergens.)

resource_waste
0 replies
1d8h

"100% whole wheat"

2g added sugar per 60 calories.

Wat

FDA would have a better reputation if their drug approval was more pro-consumer.

owenpalmer
0 replies
1d21h

I wonder if claiming non-existent ingredients could be an actual health risk as well. For example, if someone had unrelated but similar symptoms after eating the product. I wouldn't be surprised if certain medications cause harm if taken by someone who is not actually having the allergic reaction they are intended to treat.

kurthr
0 replies
1d21h

When Bimbo first changed Orowheat ingredients in their oat wheat bread (pre-pandemic) they didn't announce it.

I searched the web to figure out what happened since even the weight of the bread was noticeably off (tried weighing it on a scale). The new on-line label of ingredients, nutrition, and weight were ~10% off (over an oz), but they were still using the old labeled bags and upc/barcode.

I returned some to the grocery and let them know that all the ones on the shelf were also not the labeled weight. They were very annoyed.

fergie
0 replies
1d5h

Maybe I am missing something but surely "over-labelling" when there is a significant risk of cross-contamination is, in fact, the most sensible approach?

eggy
0 replies
1d4h

[1] "The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the prevalence of food allergies has increased by 50 percent since the 1990s, making it a serious public health concern."

The labeling and laws around them seem to be tricky business, however, it should be time to treat the disease and not just the symptoms. The above quote from the CDC tells me that medical advice to new parents and/or diet has created a monster, and it's time to undo the harm. I have 5 children from age 5 to 27 from two different women, and not one has food allergies. I realize it is anecdotal data, but I also don't recall there being so many people with various allergies growing up, and parents I have spoken to that seem to have done the same with doctors and dietary choices for their children don't have children with allergies. So, does this mean in my youth, either kids with allergies died, didn't have allergies, or avoided whatever allergens were out there and were such a small percentage it didn't register? Personally, we didn't give our children antibiotics every time they had cold-like symptoms, or go to the doctor often, and we introduced solids at a very early age along with nuts (in paste form - peanut butter, tahini when they were very young), and a diverse diet. There were families around us that had one of their kids on antibiotics once or more a year for years, and they wouldn't question it, and they were early on the gluten thing before it became a thing.

I think it would be horrific to have a life-threatening allergy to even being exposed to the trace amount of anything. On the other side, I am so tired of not being able to find "normal" food without warnings, and the trend-of-the-day nutrients overcrowding the shelves and displacing other choices. It seems in the US at least, if you say something is good for you, it winds up everywhere in massive quantities. Remember the initial Quinoa boom? Quinoa cereals, buns, drinks, tablets, in pasta, salads, etc. I know it's a grain like wheat is omnipresent, but one day the supermarket shelves get loaded with it until the next health trend comes along - Acai this, Acai that, Avocado this, that, Olive oil, Matcha, Gingko, Ginseng (80s!), Almonds (to the point of overcultivation), etc... Nothing in moderation or common sense, but marketing overload, and the public literally eats it up. I can't even find full-fat yogurt that easy now. My local ShopRite has almost 95% low-fat, no-fat, yogurts on the shelves with 5% or full-fat yogurt, and supposedly fat is good again, it's sugar that's the main culprit for obesity and diabetes and other related diseases in the US.

PS: Imagine trying to run a business in a litigious society where now 50% more people have food allergies to so many things that you need a mass spectrometer or other instrument to make bread to ensure it has what seems to be an undefined trace of one of many related food elements. Life has gotten ridiculous.

[1] https://irp.nih.gov/blog/post/2023/05/digging-up-the-roots-o...

carrotcarrot
0 replies
1d4h

FDA needs to stop pursuing useless things like this and bab the use of glyphosate as a dessicant. There's plenty of other safety concerns in the American food system. This ain't it

bluelightning2k
0 replies
1d20h

Doesn't this incentivise them to deliberately add allergens, so they can keep them on the label

antiquark
0 replies
1d19h

FDA is talking out of both sides of their mouth. From their own website:

Consumers may also see advisory statements such as “may contain [allergen] or “produced in a facility that also uses [allergen].” Such statements are not required by law and can be used to address unavoidable “cross-contact,” only if manufacturers have incorporated good manufacturing processes in their facility and have taken every precaution to avoid cross-contact that can occur when multiple foods with different allergen profiles are produced in the same facility using shared equipment or on the same production line, as the result of ineffective cleaning, or from the generation of dust or aerosols containing an allergen.

https://www.fda.gov/food/food-labeling-nutrition/food-allerg...

alephnerd
0 replies
1d7h

The sesame labeling law was lobbied by Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) [0] who are funded by the National Peanut Board, the National Dairy Council, and a number of Soy product manufacturers [1].

Essentially, the sesame law made it mandatory to label for sesame like you would for Dairy, Peanuts, and Soy.

It was a blatant lobbyist attempt by non-Sesame producers that backfired.

[0] - https://www.foodallergy.org/resources/how-fare-advocates-hel...

[1] - https://www.foodallergy.org/corporate-partners

adolph
0 replies
1d15h

From the FDA letter, it looks like they want Bimbo to move the allergens from ingredients to a possible cross-contamination statement. Seems pretty straightforward.

We also offer the following comments:

Separate from the food allergen labeling requirements of the Act, firms may voluntarily place other information or statements on the labels of food products to disclose information about allergens to consumers. For example, firms may choose to voluntarily place allergen advisory statements on products to alert consumers to the possible presence of major food allergens due to cross-contact. Any allergen advisory statement must be truthful and not misleading.

https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-c...

On the other hand, Bimbo is misspelling Khorasan!

The ingredient list declares “Kamut®” which is not part of the common or usual name of Khorasan wheat because it is a brand name. Furthermore, Khorasan is misspelled as “Khorsan.”

NovemberWhiskey
0 replies
1d5h

If guaranteed-sesame-free bread (or whatever) isn't a commercially viable product, then there's nothing that the FDA can do to change that.

If you operate a punitive regulatory regime with respect to cross-contamination, you can't expect manufacturers to say "OK, we'll take the occasional fine and public-relations hit just to address this tiny part of the market" if that's not good business.

If you buy cotton cleaning patches for cleaning rifles, they come with Prop 65 warnings these days. Not because cotton causes cancer, but because cleaning your rifle can expose you to lead, and because plaintiff's attorneys can sue in private enforcement actions. So does the rifle, the solvent and the brass cleaning rod.

JoeAltmaier
0 replies
6h9m

It was a good idea to start. List ingredients and warn of allergens! Very helpful.

But a stray sesame seed gets into something and somebody gets a reaction and they sue. Essentially it went from "list allergens" to "If you don't list something, that's a hard promise it won't be in there"

See the difference? You can be diligent about keeping allergens out, but bakeries are big places with lots of equipment being used for lots of things. They can be diligent and still occasionally something gets in there - a tiny seed, stuck by static electricity to a paddle etc.

I suggest, to return some sanity to all this, that food preparers have a standard for diligence. If they meet it, then the occasional sesame seed is deemed a reasonable risk and to be understood. That civil cases can't be held limitlessly responsible for everybody's health.

FerretFred
0 replies
10h20m

Cynical me thinks it sounds like an attempt by Big Food to future-proof themselves against ingredients that may later be found to be an allergen. Have they considered that the plastic packaging they use might be shedding microplastics etc into the product. Er, loaf ?

Animats
0 replies
15h7m

The label for Wonder Bread indicates it doesn't have sesame seeds. If you stick to good old American white bread, no problem. It's the bakeries that produce that artisanal multi-grain hippie bread that have sesame all over the place.

39896880
0 replies
1d1h

Nothing that bakery makes can reasonably be labelled food.